The Camps are Closed

When the last helo came in today from Marble Point,
the last camp closed and except for the last week
of song and dance, the Extended Season is drawing to
an end. It's odd to see people in the Galley that
you have no idea who they are. If they've even been
to McMurdo the last two months, it was for a brief
weekend visit and then back off to the Dry Valleys.
I doubt there will be an Extended Season again for
a while, but it's been interesting for sure this
year.

That's a Big Tank

The "Tank Guys" are finishing up the construction of
the new "2 Million Gallon Tank". The lid went on during
the past few days. It will eventually be painted, receive
stairs, rails and all the acutriments, but for the most
part, it's in the can...ha! There are tanks just as big
here, but this one is the closest to "town" and it's quite
a presence.

Crane In The Gap

Unfortunately, there's been a lot of sad news about
Cranes in the world lately, but fortunately nothing
dramatic is happening with our crane operation here
at McMurdo. The Redundant Bulk Fuel Tank Project is
moving along smoothly even though our main Grove crane
had an engine breakdown last week. This will cause a
brand new engine to be flown in from somewhere (either
the US, New Zealand or Australia) in the next six months.
It's pretty much business as usual though for the
5 "Tank Guys" who are here for the Extended Season to
construct the new tank that will eventually store
2 million gallons of fuel. This is one of 5 that are
planned. In the meantime, the crane itself poses
occasional challenges for the Helo crews as they are
reminded regularly about the "Crane in the Gap". They're
just not used to things being that tall around here.

Landing

Apparently, you can't land a helicopter just anywhere.
It has to be a flat surface that doesn't allow slippage
or sliding. That makes sense, but I'm guessing it's not
so easy to do out at the Dry Valleys.


At some of the sites, they've built platforms for the helos
to land since the terrain is either too loose or too sloped
to safely land upon. This is a really nice deck. I could see
building a house right next to this and hanging out during a
barbecue. Those pesky helicopters though would be worse than
mosquitos I'm guessing.


At other locations, the helo can land right on the ground,
although the landing spot is definitely marked. This spot
looks like a good place for a day at the beach. The water
looks a little cold though. Must be what they mean by
"hard water".

All These Worlds...

...are yours, except Europa.


Tonight we attended a rarity in March, here at
McMurdo. A science lecture. Typically not a lot
of science goes on here during the winter. Mostly
the winter crew in Crary Lab maintaining projects
that see most of their activity during the summer.
However, now we're in an Extended Season period
where a great deal of science is happening. Most
of it in the Dry Valleys. Tonight Dr. John Priscu
of Project B-422-M gave an entertaining slide show,
discussing his group (about 15 scientists) and what
they are doing here until Mid-April.


Dr. Priscu told us about their study of bacterial
microbes being studied under the frozen surfaces
of Lake Hoare, Lake Bonney and Lake Fryxell and
how it similar it is to a great deal of bodies of
liquid water found under the glaciers and ice
shelf areas throughout the continent. Apparently
there are rivers the size of the Amazon and some
of the largest lakes in the world located under
this ice.


He's been working here for several decades and even
has several geographic features named after him, but
one of parts of his presentation I found most interesting
was the discussion of his work at Lake Vostok. Lake
Vostok is the size of Lake Ontario and is located under
2 1/2 miles of ice directly below Vostok Station. The
Russians several years ago began drilling for ice cores
in this area and inadvertently found the lake. Now they
are making plans to "safely" puncture the "roof" of the
ice covering the lake to draw core samples of ice from
the lake. All very complicated stuff.


In the Q/A section at the end, I asked John if he had
been working with the group that wants to send probes
to Europa. Europa is the moon of Jupiter that many
feel is most like the Dry Valley lakes or even Lake
Vostok. Lakes covered by ice, yet very liquid in nature.
Lynn and I are big fans of Europa since it's featured
in one of our favorite movies: 2010, staring the late
Roy Scheider. And yes, he has been working with these
folks and he said that the ice on Europa could be thinner
and much easier to punch through than that of Vostok.
Interesting stuff...and the reason we are having an
Extended Season...The study of microbes in perpetually
frozen lakes.