December 5, 2004Published during the austral summer at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, for the United States Antarctic Program

By Brien BarnettSun staff

The man dressed in mountaineering clothingcarried his ice axe up to the rocky hillside, thenbent over and said, “Excuse me while I cut a fewsteps here.”

The 84-year-old Kiwi who used the climbingtool to draw laughs earlier this week at Scott Basewas none other than the man for whom the higheststeps in the world are named: Sir Edmund Hillary.

Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, his partnerin the 1953 epic climb, will forever be etched inthe annals of mountaineering as the first to reachthe summit of Mount Everest, the world’s highestpeak at 8,847m. Hillary encountered and climbeda difficult rock face just 30 meters below the sum-mit. That cliff is now called the Hillary Step.

Much lower and farther south is a place calledthe Hillary Coast. The area on the west margin ofthe Ross Ice Shelf was named in his honor in 1961,three years after he lead the successful 1,900kmtraverse from Scott Base to the South Pole. Withthe dedication of the Hillary Field Center at ScottBase his name will be synonymous with the futureexploration of Antarctica.

The Hillary Field Center is an important nextstep for Antarctica New Zealand, which overseesScott Base, just “over the hill” from McMurdoStation. The board of Antarctica New Zealand and

By Kristan HutchisonSun staff

If krill are the meat of the Southern Oceanmenu, then salps are the Jell-O salad — plen-tiful but with little substance.

“Salps are sort of the flip side of the krillfoodweb and they haven’t been studied verymuch,” said biological oceanographer PatKremer, who, with Larry Madin, is currentlyaboard the research vessel Laurence M. Gouldfor five weeks for the first study aimed specif-ically at Southern Ocean salps.

Much more is known about krill, becausethe shrimp-like zooplankton have been thefocus of many studies, including the LongTerm Ecological Research project out of

Palmer Station. Krill seem to be in declinebecause of warming trends along the AntarcticPeninsula and a decrease in the winter icecover, Kremer said.

With the drop in krill, Kremer suspectssalps may be filling the gap, as well as theguts, of many hungry Antarctic animals.

“It leaves the door open for salps to dowell,” said Kremer.

Filling up on salps could leave birds under-nourished though, like a diet of melons.

“Would you like steak or boiled onion?Salps, for their size, have relatively little nutri-tion,” Kremer said.

It’s difficult to tell how many salps may beeaten by penguin and albatross, becausethere’s not much to the jelly-like animals. Their semi-transparent, barrel-shaped bodies

Microbes rule the Earthon a very small scale

page 7

I N S I D E

Photographer seespast the scenery

page 12

Jelly-like salps fill the sea menuNearly transparent animals plentiful, but a meager meal

See Salps on page 8

‘Sir Ed’ pops over the hill for a visit

Photo by Brien Barnett / The Antarctic SunSir Edmund Hillary places a high-frequency radio call to South Pole Station fromMacOps, the communications center at McMurdo Station. During the call Hillary talkedabout his tour of McMurdo Station with South Pole operator Tracy Sheeley, and gavewell-wishes to those living and working in what he called “the far beyond” in theunplanned call arranged by MacOps staff. Hillary was the leader of a team that was thefirst to reach the pole by vehicle to the Pole in 1958.See Hillary on page 9

“South Pole, South Pole, can you hear me?”

DON’T RUN OUT OF TIME!The Antarctic Sun Photo and writing

contest entry deadline is Dec. 12.E-mail your entries to

antsun.mcmurdo@usap.gov(for more information see

www.polar.org/antsun)

2 • The Antarctic Sun December 5, 2004

Matt Davidson

Gondwanaland

What it was: A mass of land largely inthe southern hemisphere

Continents and areas it broke into:Australia, New Zealand, Africa, SouthAmerica, India, Antarctica

Formed: About 200 million years ago

What it was before that: Part of Pangea,the super-continent

South Pole then: In what is now Africa

South Pole now: In Antarctica

Broke into continents: About 190 mil-lion years ago

Drake Passage opened: About 70 mil-lion years ago

Antarctica settled at present position:About 40 million years ago

Plate movement: Average 19mm ayear

Sources: Handy Science answer book,Lonely Planet Antarctica, Webster’s NewWorld Dictionary of Science.

Cold, hard facts

Ross Island Chronicles By Chico

LAST ONE IN IS AROTTEN EGG!!!

WHOA!!!

Hmmm...you go first. Uh...no you go first. I don’tmind being a rotten egg.

What are you...chicken? OOPS!!!

The Antarctic Sun is funded by the NationalScience Foundation as part of the United StatesAntarctic Program (OPP-000373). Its primary

audience is U.S. AntarcticProgram participants, their fami-lies, and their friends. NSFreviews and approves materialbefore publication, but opinions

and conclusions expressed in The Sun are notnecessarily those of the Foundation.

Use: Reproduction and distribution areencouraged with acknowledgment ofsource and author.

Senior Editor: Kristan HutchisonEditors: Brien Barnett, Emily StoneCopy Editors: Hunter Slaton,

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Web address: www.polar.org/antsun

It’s a harsh cartoon

December 5, 2004 The Antarctic Sun • 3

By Emily StoneSun staff

A 15,000-square-kilometer swath of theMcMurdo Dry Valleys, already an areawith strict environmental guidelines, willbe better protected after it recently becamean Antarctic Specially Managed Area.

The Dry Valleys were one of two areason the continent approved for ASMA statusby the Antarctic Treaty members in June.The U.S. and New Zealand Antarctic pro-grams jointly submitted the proposal. Theother area granted ASMA status in 2004 isan Australian historic site at Cape Denison.

The status creates guidelines for bothscientific and tourist activity in the area.Many of the rules codify existing practices,and some scientists in the field may feel lit-tle effect on their day-to-day operations.However, the ASMA designation will coor-dinate the various environmental practicesthat were already in place, and increase thelevel of protection for the entire area.

“It’s the holistic approach to manage-ment,” explained Polly Penhale, environ-mental officer for the National ScienceFoundation. Penhale noted that aManagement Coordination Group will beformed this year by countries conductingresearch in the Dry Valleys. The group willcoordinate activities in the area and facili-tate the exchange of information amongscientists working there.

The Dry Valleys are the largest relative-ly ice-free area in Antarctica, with about 30percent of the ground free of ice and snow.The area is of great value for studying cli-mate change, and contains unusual biolog-ical communities and geological features.

Robert Falcon Scott and his men firstdiscovered the Dry Valleys. The arearemains an important scientific site, andhas been home to a Long Term EcologicalResearch project (LTER) since 1993.

Robert Wharton, the first principleinvestigator for the LTER and former exec-utive officer in the NSF’s Office of PolarPrograms, said the designation is a modelfor managing the impact of scientificresearch conducted in large, fragile areas.It’s particularly important to have such aplan for the Dry Valleys, he said.

“The Dry Valleys are very sensitive todamage,” said Wharton, now the chiefresearch officer at Idaho State University.“When you walk up and down the DryValleys you leave footprints that you seefive and 10 years later.”

Berry Lyons, with Ohio StateUniversity’s Byrd Polar Research Center,is the current principle investigator on theDry Valleys LTER project, and has workedin there for much of the last 20 years. Hesaid that the number of people in the area

has increased during that time, but so hastheir level of environmental consciousness.

“I think the people who work out there,more than perhaps most, recognize howunique scientifically it is and how fragile itis environmentally,” he said.

An advantage of the new designation,Lyons said, is that it stresses how importantthe whole area is to many different scientif-ic disciplines, and coordinates their activi-ties there.

“Before people kind of dealt with small-er units of landscape,” he said. “And nowwe’re looking at the Valleys as one united,interconnected piece and I think that’sgoing to lead to better stewardship.”

The ASMA management plan establish-es three types of zones within the DryValleys: facilities zones, special featuresand tourism zones. These are in addition tofour existing Antarctic Specially ProtectedAreas in the Dry Valleys.

The facilities zones are areas with semi-permanent human activity. The goal is tominimize the footprint of facilities andmaterials within the zones. The zones mustincorporate plans for the use of alternativeenergy and waste management, and will beperiodically assessed. These include thecamps at lakes Bonney, Fryxell and Hoare.The Management Coordination Group willevaluate the creation of additional facilitieszones if the need arises.

Special features zones are areas of highscientific value, which are particularly sen-sitive to human activity. There will be min-imal sampling and research inside the ninedesignated special features, and helicoptersmust land at least 50m away from them.

These include Don Juan Pond andExplorers Cave.

The tourism zone is located in theTaylor Valley near the Canada Glacier.Tours must be restricted to small, guidedgroups that use designated paths and camp-sites, and avoid streams and ponds when-ever possible. About 200 tourists a yearvisit the area, roughly half of themAmerican, according to Rebecca Roper-Gee, Environmental Advisor to AntarcticaNew Zealand.

Each country decides its own penaltiesfor breaking any of these rules, which fallunder the Antarctic Conservation Act. Inthe U.S. the penalty is up to a year in prisonand an $11,000 fine. In New Zealand it’sup to six months in prison and a $100,000NZ fine.

Both the U.S. and New Zealand willrely heavily on education, and not enforce-ment, in making sure the rules are fol-lowed, Penhale and Roper-Gee said.

“Most people down here want to do theright thing,” Penhale said. She explainedthat scientists and support staff working inthe Dry Valleys take special precautions toavoid altering the fragile environment,including separating and removing allwaste and graywater from the area andusing secondary containment devices forall fuel and chemical transfers.

The U.S. is also starting to collect GPSdata from each place where scientists areworking in the Dry Valleys. This informa-tion will be consolidated in a central data-base to see if any sites are being overused,or if one science team’s research might beaffecting another’s.

Photo by Kristan Hutchison / The Antarctic SunMembers of a science team working near Lake Fryxell in the Dry Valleys return to a heli-copter after collecting samples. The Dry Valleys are an area of great scientific interestbecause of the area’s unique biological communities and geological features.

Dry Valleys better protected under new guidelines

Little hut on the big glacierBy Scott Freeman

It sounds like a bizarre new twist inthe reality TV genre: put two guys ina 2m by 3.5m shack, at 1,600m ele-vation on a cold, windy glacier in

Antarctica and see who breaks first. ThinkLaura Ingalls Wilder meets “Survivor.”

That’s life on Odell Glacier, 160kmnorth-northwest of McMurdo Station,where my field partner and I tend an emer-gency ice runway on the flight path fromChristchurch to McMurdo. But even inAntarctica, real life is less dramatic thanreality TV.

I’d been told, and had been telling peo-ple, that I have the least demanding job onthe continent. All we have to do is put in ablue ice runway, keep it free of snow usinga small tractor with snow-blower and tillerattachments, and call in weather threetimes a day. In one of the drier parts of thedriest continent, how hard can that be? Inow know the answer to the first part ofthat one: pretty dang challenging.

Problem number One: we can’t makethe Alp One Ski-doo run. Can’t say that Iblame the snowmobile. After all, it’s 25years old and –25 C. There’s one just likeit in the Christchurch museum. So, forstarters, you have the 2.5km commute tothe runway every day, on heavily sun-cupped blue ice. I experimented with var-ious ways to stick to the ice: crampons,stable-icers (a studded strap-on rubbersole), and sheet metal screws in the solesof my boots. The crampons broke the sec-ond day, and the stable-icers and sheetmetal screws weren’t sufficient for thesteep hill to the lower glacier. I finally set-tled on a slightly longer overland routethat avoided the ice hill.

Over four days I packed down a tent,stove, food, and fuel for an emergencyshelter; a cordless drill, screws, and flagsto mark the runway; and a gas powereddrill and bit for putting in the bamboomarker poles. Add to this food and water,as well as the extra clothes that I carriedback and forth every day, and suddenly it’sa pretty hefty pack. That’s just to get towork. Next start man-hauling bamboopoles, both drills, and markers down the2km-long runway to replace markers that

were destroyed over the winter. This isAntarctica in the finest British tradition.

Eventually, with the help of a yellow1940s-style heater called a HermanNelson and a little isopropyl alcohol in thefuel, the Ski-doo was persuaded to start.The tractor proved to be even more, shallwe say, intractable. Made by Kubota, butdubbed the Kubuda by someone with apaintbrush and some creativity, the redtractor is a Tonka-toy version of aCaterpillar tractor. Its 36-horsepowerengine barely matches the 1959Volkswagen Bug I used to drive.

First we encountered several coolantleaks, including one at a stripped manifoldbolt. This required parts and tools that had tocome out with a mechanic (thanks Brady)on a future supply flight. Since then we’vehad more coolant leaks and a hydraulic leak,broken a half dozen welds and two cotterpins on the snow blower chute, and sheareda bolt on the power take-off universal joint.Using parts robbed from wherever we couldfind them we’ve managed to cobble thetractor back into life.

As for clearing snow from the runway,this has proven to be a fairly difficult task.First, there is a lot of it, in the form ofdrifts as much as a meter high. Second, thesnow is rock-hard after a winter of windand cold. The routine is to drive the tractorover the drift, break up the surface snowwith the tiller, then remove this top layerwith the snow blower. Repeat this proce-dure once, twice, half a dozen times untilyou are down to the ice. Just be sure not toget stuck or tip over. Seventy-four tractorhours later and the runway is good enoughto call it done. Good enough that our thirdSunday in camp will actually be a day off.

I see many more Kubuda hours in myfuture, touching things up on the runway.Then there is a long list of camp choresthat we’ve been putting off while we’vebeen working on the runway. So we willdefinitely be busy for the foreseeablefuture. But then I didn’t come toAntarctica to lead the easy life. I came forthe challenges. I wouldn’t have it anyother way.

4 • The Antarctic Sun December 5, 2004

Perspectives Perspectives

Scott Freeman and Kevin Killilea with the Kubotatractor at Odell Glacier, where they groom an emer-gency runway. At upper right, the one-room shackthey share. Lower right, an intricate painting deco-rates the hub of the tractor.

Photos by Scott Freeman / Special to The Antarctic Sun

the week in weather

Dinner, music and the origins of the universeBy Katie HessSouth Pole correspondent

Everyone at the South Pole Stationpitched in to help with preparations forSouth Pole’s Thanksgiving dinner. Poliessigned up to peel potatoes, make pies, deco-rate the dining hall, set tables and cleanup.The kitchen staff put in a bunch of extrawork as well. The meal, enjoyed by theentire station, was served in three back-to-back shifts, using nearly every seat in thenew dining hall.

Earlier Thanksgiving weekend, theSouth Pole rock band Squeaky Meat rockedthe Summer Camp lounge. Band membersinclude Tom Woods on vocals and guitar,Dave Benson on guitar, Mark Eisinger onbass, Christian Gils with percussion andCatherine Graciano and Katie Hess servingup back-up vocals. The band is scheduled togive a second performance in a few weeks.

A “command performance” of filmsfrom last year’s First Annual South PoleFilm Fest was well attended on Sundayafternoon. Would-be moviemakers of the2004-2005 season are already fired-up forthe 2005 festival, which will be held in mid-January.

“It was great. It was awesome. It wasbetter than I ever expected,” filmmaker andchief festival organizer Brian Land said,referring to the original event in January2004.

Other filmmakers included TomPiwarwoski, Mike Boyce, Tyler Regan,Holly Carlson, Dave Carlson, Joe Speidel,Keros Johnson and Jack Giacalone.

The past week’s South Pole summerSunday science lecture, titled “Very LongPeriod and Other Seismic Signals from anOpen Conduit Strombolian Volcano (or,What’s Shaking on Mount Erebus)” waspresented by Rick Aster. He and RhettButler visited South Pole Station this weekto work on the South Pole Remote EarthSciences and Seismology Observatory pro-ject (SPRESSO). Aster’s presentationdescribed their instrumentation and research

on Mount Erebus that reveals unique char-acteristics of this Antarctic volcano.

Out in the Dark Sector portion of the sta-tion, the telescope formerly known as DASI(Degree Angular Scale Interferomteter) istaking on a new look as QUEST (Q and UExtra-galactic Submillimeter Telescope)moves in — clearly competing for musclewith BICEP (Background Imaging ofCosmic Extragalactic Polarization) to deter-mine polarization in the cosmic microwavebackground. It was an exciting week forQUAD (QUest At DASI) researchers whowere installing their new 135kg dewar (atank holding liquid elements such as heliumor nitrogen used to cool things) under thenew set of lenses that will look back in timetoward the beginning of the universe.

For the birds: penguin, skua and turkeyBy Kerry KellsPalmer correspondent

Preparations for Thanksgiving beganwith a community pie-baking, followed byour traditional community dinner and twofull days of rest. On Wednesday, visitingartist and writer Jude Nutter gave a poetry

reading. She asked the group to write apoem to be voluntarily read at a gatheringnext week.

Strong winds opened up the sea ice andthe scientists were able to take the Zodiacboats out to two of the sampling sites for thefirst time this year. The researchers havebeen busy in the field when the ice condi-tions allow.

The seabird researchers under Bill Fraseron station now are Brett Pickering, in hisfourth year with Fraser’s project, Dan Evansin his second year and Peter Horne in hisfirst year, with two previous seasons in adifferent Long Term Ecological Researchproject. Throughout the season, they willstudy seabird species, including giantpetrels, blue-eyed shags (cormorants), southpolar skuas, brown skuas and kelp gulls,with a strong research focus on Adelie, gen-too and chinstrap penguins. On Tuesdaymorning Kelsi Giswold, a first-year carpen-ter’s helper, and I were the lucky ones cho-sen to assist the “birders,” as they areknown, for the day. Throughout the season,everyone will get a chance to help the bird-ers at some of the islands with theirresearch.

Our first stop was at the southern islandof Cormorant where we assisted Pickeringin measuring snow depth along differenttransects of the island as Evans and Horne

December 5, 2004 The Antarctic Sun • 5

around the continent

PALMER

SOUTH POLE

McMurdo StationHigh: 33F / 01C Low: 14F / -10CMax. sustained wind: 38 mph / 61kphWindchill: -15F / -26C

South Pole StationHigh: -11F / -24C Low: -33F / -36CPeak wind: 26mph / 42kphMax. Physio-altitude: 3,117m

See Palmer on page 6

Palmer StationHigh temperature: 44F / 7CLow temperature: 24F / -5CMax sustained wind: 30mph / 48kphPrecipitation: 11mm

Above, Christian Reichardt, Mountain Miller,Roselie Rasmussen, Rebecca Comley andDennis Barkat peel beets, carrots and applesfor Thanksgiving dinner at the South Pole.Left, a poster for the Thanksgiving perfor-mance by the South Pole band.

Photo by Robert Schwarz / Special to The Antarctic Sun

Art by Ken Keenan

counted the cormorants and Adelie pen-guins. Our next stop was at Christine Island,just a few minutes’ Zodiac ride fromCormorant Island. Here we measured snowdepth at different points around the island.Evans and Horne counted the Adelie pen-guin populations at indicator colonies(colonies or sites where long-term data hasbeen collected). The birders visit Cormorantand Christine islands every five days.

Every two days the birders visitTorgersen Island, closest to the station, andHumble Island, a few minutes to the northof the station. At these islands they againtrack the nests in indicator colonies. Certainnests are tracked in some colonies and with-in these nests they count the number of eggspresent. At this time, the males were aloneon the nests, as most females had left tofeed. If a couple was still present at the nestsite, the most likely explanation was that thefemale had not yet laid her second egg, sohad not left yet to feed. The chicks thathatch from these islands will be weighedand measured as they fledge in the fall.

Torgersen Island, the last one we visitedthat day, is unique as it has a control side(where visitors are not allowed to go) sepa-rated from a human side (open to visitors).The bulk of human impact is on Torgersen,as more than a thousand tourists visit theisland each year. Penguin populations havebeen studied there for many years. The bird-ers counted the number of birds in eachcolony on the island and tracked certainnests within those colonies. Most of thepenguins on the nests were males with a fewremaining couples. If the male was the onlypenguin present, the birders checked to seeif he had two eggs. If a nest had only oneegg, a skua had likely stolen the other one.The researchers also counted the number offreshly eaten eggs, which lay scatteredabout on the snow and rocks.

After counting the birds, we returned to acouple of colonies to measure and weigh 50

penguins andtheir eggs. Fromthese colonies,Evans or Hornemeasured thebeak length anddepth, and theweight of themale penguin.Pickering mea-sured the length,width andweight of eachegg from thepenguin’s nest.

The penguin would then be released toreturn to its nest. The average penguinweight is somewhere around 3.5kg. Theeggs weighed around 100 grams.

The field team of birders will continuethroughout the summer season to make tripsto the Adelie penguin colonies scatteredaround Palmer. Long-term studies indicatethat local Adelie penguin populations aredeclining. They will continue to study howlocal ecosystems, climate changes andhumans affect Adelie penguin numbers.During the month of January, Pickering andHorne will leave on the Long TermEcological cruise and study the Adelie pop-ulations on a grid all the way to AvianIsland, almost 400km south from PalmerStation.

NBP turns northCompiled from reports by Karl Newyear

After reaching the southernmost point ofthe cruise 75.24 south on Nov. 26, theNathaniel B. Palmer slowly returned north.

The researchers continued to sample sea-water, observing traces of water meltedfrom the ice shelf in it, as cold as –1.99C

The weather was moderate. On oneafternoon several orca whales appeared nearthe ship and the researchers attempted to

approach them in a Zodiac for photographs,under a permit held by researcher DebThiele. However, the whales moved quickerthan the boat and were gone without allow-ing any approaches.

On Nov. 30 the researchers took their142nd and final measurement of conductiv-ity, temperature and depth, then packed uptheir instruments and secured their labs forthe open water transit. Other samples andmeasurements are being done as the NBPsteams generally northward towardLyttelton, NZ.

Amy West presented a slide show on hertravels around the world, from Gabon to theArctic.

Gould samples planktonCompiled from reports by Skip Owen

The Laurence M. Gould departed PuntaArenas Nov. 23 and began science shortlyafter, collecting plankton samples off thecoast of Argentina for a study of the genet-ics of marine invertebrates. Led by KennethHalanych from Auburn University inAlabama, the researchers are trying to dis-cover if there is a breaking point in thegenetics of the invertebrates as they samplethem from Argentina down to the AntarcticPeninsula.

Some water sampling had to be skippedbecause of high winds, with gusts up to 50knots. However, a number of other tech-niques were used to collect water andmarine life, and the work of sorting the vari-ety of fauna found kept everyone busy.

“The winds have been up and down, andwe have been working operations aroundthem somewhat,” wrote marine projectscoordinator Skip Owen.

The winds turned moderate, with sunnyconditions on Nov. 28, and scientists had aproductive day of diving and sample-col-lecting. On Nov. 30 the Gould headed forthe Elephant Island area of the peninsula,where the scientific focus switched to salpresearch (See story on page 1).

Palmer6 • The Antarctic Sun December 5, 2004

From page 5

What is your favorite item of cold weather gear?

“Balaclava. I’dnever heard of itand didn’t know

what it was.”

Christina HammockSouth Pole research

associate fromAnnapolis, Md.

first season

“The insulatedCarhartt bibs.

They are two sizestoo big but comfy.”

Tonya EdwardsPalmer Station

carpenter’s helperfrom Atlanta, Ga

first season

“Bunny boots,because they’re socool, they’re hot.”

Heidi HausmanMcMurdo general

assistant from FallsChurch, Va.first season

SHIPS

Photo by Kelsi Giswold / Special to The Antarctic Sun

Cormorants on an islandnear Palmer Station.

December 5, 2004 The Antarctic Sun • 7

By Kristan HutchisonSun staff

The microscopic outweigh and outnumber the rest of us.

Valleys have officially joined a network ofprojects studying this “silent majority.”

The Dry Valleys microbial research pro-ject received a five-year grant starting inJune 2003 from the Microbial Observatoriesand Microbial Interactions and Processesprogram under the National ScienceFoundation, a program separate from theOffice of Polar Programs that funds mostAntarctic research. The microbial programsupports integrative studies that explorenovel microorganisms, their interactionsand aspects of their physiology, biochem-istry and genomics in relationship to the rolethey carry out in the environment.

“What makes Antarctica particularlyattractive is that we have a lot of unexploredterritory with very unusual physical andchemical parameters for novel habitats,”said Matt Kane, program director for theNSF Division of Molecular and CellularBiosciences. He noted that the McMurdoDry Valley Lakes Microbial Observatoryoffers fascinating science, a long history ofresearch already conducted at the site, adiverse research team and the application ofnew tools. The Dry Valleys have alreadybeen a Long Term Ecological Research pro-ject for more than a decade.

Microbes are the oldest and most abun-dant form of life on the planet. They purifythe air and water and regenerate the soil.

“Ultimately, we live on a microbial plan-et,” Kane said. “It is activities mediated bythese life forms that drive the atmosphericand biogeochemical and other elementalcycles of the planet.”

New evidence indicates that the mass ofprokaryotes living in the subsurface of theplanet may outweigh all other life on thesurface, Kane said. A similar comparisoncould be drawn in Antarctica, where carbon-based microbes have been found living inthe ice sheet itself.

“There’s as much carbon in the Antarcticice sheet as there is in all the world’s freshwater,” said John Priscu, a microbiologistand limnologist from Montana StateUniversity who’s worked in the Dry Valleyssince the 1980s and is the lead of the obser-vatory project. Priscu will work with threeother principal investigators, Brian Lanoilfrom the University of California-Riverside,Mike Madigan from Southern IllinoisUniversity and Steve Giovannoni fromOregon State University.

About a third of the sites funded by themicrobial observatory program are inextreme environments. So little is knownabout the microbial world that new bacteriamight be discovered in any backyard pud-dle, but the ones living in extreme environ-ments have more to teach us, Kane said.

“NSF wants to maximize the impact ofthe exploration and discovery that it funds,”Kane said. “By looking at the breadth ofconditions under which life can live, we feelwe have a much greater chance of identify-ing the most interesting and new forms oflife that are most likely to revolutionize ourview of the biological world.”

With an average mean annual tempera-ture of –26.7C and usually only about sixdays a year above freezing, the Dry Valleysqualify as one of the most extreme climates.

“It really is a desert,” Priscu said. “I’veleft a baloney sandwich out and I’ve foundit the next year and could still eat it. There’snot much going on out there.”

While there’s little visible life at the sur-face, the lakes house entire microbialecosystems. In fact, the water within them isso still that different depths in Lake Fryxellcontain completely different chemical pro-files and corresponding types of organisms.

“We’ve got multiple different communi-ties within that lake,” said Lanoil. “I thinkit’s due to stratification.”

For the next five years the Dry Valleysmicrobial observatory will focus on fourdifferent depths of Lake Fryxell and the twolobes of Lake Bonney.

Water at the bottom of the east lobe ofLake Bonney is about –1C and heavilyladen with salt crystals. The west lobe ofLake Bonney has a beachy smell fromworld-record levels of dimethylsulfide in itswater. At the same time, all of Lake Bonneyis very deficient in phosphorous. One ques-tion the researchers have is whether some of

the differences in the water chemistry arecaused by the kinds of microbes living atthat level or whether the kinds of microbesresulted from the chemicals within thelakes.

Beyond that, the researchers expect toidentify some completely new microbes.The possibility of finding sources of newand beneficial pharmaceuticals and biotech-nological products is one of the reasons formicrobial research, Kane said.

Priscu’s group already discovered somemicrobes of interest to biochemical compa-nies, including a prokaryote from LakeFryxell that produces a substance to inhibitice and an algae that produces chlorophyllin the dark.

The Microbial Observatory programstarted five years ago to meet the pent-updemand of scientists, Kane said. Though theNSF has more than 50 programs across sev-eral different directorates that in some wayfund microbial research, this was the first tofocus on environmental microbe biologyand microbial diversity. In the inauguralyear, nearly 50 proposals were submitted.Since then the program has handed out $24million to cover about 40 different sites,ranging from Yellowstone National Park toCosta Rica to the Kamchatka Peninsula.This year, scientists submitted 195 propos-als.

“It’s very rare that you see an area ofemphasis grow four-fold in that kind oftimeframe,” Kane said. “That’s a direct indi-cation that this program was communitydriven.”

The collaboration between the two NSFprograms benefits both, said Polly Penhale,the NSF Office of Polar Programs sciencerepresentative at McMurdo Station whenKane visited.

“It helps us understand the polar regionsand helps them in their study of newmicrobes and new processes, so it’s a goodpartnership,” Penhale said.

Eventually another microbial observatorymay be established in the Arctic as well,another area overseen by the Office of PolarPrograms, Penhale said.

Kane visited McMurdo Station for aweek in November, including a two-day sitevisit to the Dry Valleys. He was impressedby the facilities there, and at the Crary Lab.

“Really, I know of no other place wherethat kind of support is available,” Kane said.“Crary Lab itself is about five times biggerthan I expected it to be.”

NSF-funded research in this story: Dry Valley Lakes Microbial Observatory,http://mcm-dvlakesmo.montana.edu/

Big focus on miniscule life forms

Photo by Kristan Hutchison / The Antarctic Sun

A helicopter lands at a research camp on theedge of Lake Bonney.

Now researchers studyingmicrobes in the McMurdo Dry

8 • The Antarctic Sun December 5, 2004

are mostly water, with about as much sub-stance left after digestion as a spoonful ofJell-O.

“The problem with something that’sgelatinous is that it doesn’t have this nicehard body that appears in the gut, so theremay have been more salps consumed bybirds, fish and mammals than we realize,”Kremer said.

The Gould will cross to either the north-west Weddell Sea or to the BransfieldStraits, depending on sea conditions. Sixdivers from the Kremer and Madin teamwill descend into the–1C degree waters, car-rying quart-size plasticjars. Clipped into a cen-tral vertical line with 30-foot tethers, the diverswill spread out to herdsalps into their jars.

“This technique,called bluewater diving, is something wehave used for over 30 years to collect gelati-nous plankton” said Madin. “But we’vealmost always done it in temperate or tropi-cal waters, and the Antarctic adds a wholenew dimension to the diving.”

The manner of collection is important sothat the salps arrive on deck whole andunstressed. Not a fan of cold water, Kremerwill stay above deck, measuring the salps’rate of respiration, defecation, fertilization,growth and feeding in the ship’s lab.

“You do the experiments right awayso the animals are in great shape,”

Kremer said.The group will be able to compare the

rates of Salpa thompsoni found in the south-ern Ocean with Salpa aspera, a closely relat-ed species Kremer and Madin have workedwith in the North Atlantic. They expect thesouthern species will have lower rates, butnot much lower, as they are adapted to bothlow temperature and a short season of abun-dant particulate food.

Determining the rate at which salps areborn, feed, defecate, reproduce and die willhelp researchers understand how they fit inthe ecosystem of the Southern Ocean. Forexample, salps use mucus nets to catch phy-toplankton, particles and single-celled crea-

tures to eat. “Salps have an amaz-

ing way of feeding”Madin explained. “Theyform a net inside theirbody, like a little plank-ton net but made ofmucus, and pump waterthrough it to filter out all

the phytoplankton and other small particles.They are really the little self-propelled vac-uum cleaners of the sea.”

The fecal pellets coming out the otherend sink to the seafloor, enriching it.Determining how much the salps are eatingand how much they eject will give Kremerand Madin an idea of how much carbon isbeing transferred to the bottom, and howeffectively salps can compete with othergrazers, like krill.

Salps also have a remarkable means ofreproducing, alternating between an asexualstage that makes hundreds of baby salps at a

time, and a sexual stage that produces a sin-gle baby.

“It gives them the best of both,” Madinsaid. “Rapid population growth and sexualrecombination to keep the gene pool undercontrol.”

The first dives off the tip of Tierra delFuego turned up another salp species,allowing the team to practice all their meth-ods and get new data in the process.

“This species is also poorly known, andfinding it was a great way to start our trip”said Madin.

Other finds by the divers included bigcomb jellies and an unusual swimmingsnail.

Although weather crossing the DrakePassage was unusually calm, seas wererough by the time the Gould reached thefirst station near Elephant Island.

“We’re standing by to dive,” said Madin,“and hoping things calm down soon.”

In the meantime, the team has workedwith salps brought up in nets, gathering newinformation about their diet and reproduc-tive capability. Salpa thompsoni seems ableto produce far more offspring than moretemperate species, perhaps allowing it toexploit phytoplankton blooms rapidly.

They won’t find all the answers on thefirst trip though. The cruise is the first oftwo for the project. Madin and Kremer willreturn in February 2006, when they expectan even larger abundance of salps.

NSF-funded research in this story: Pat Kremer, University of Connecticut,http://www.marinesciences.uconn.edu/faculty/pkremer.html

by David GinsburgOdontaster meridionalis is a small (about 4 inches from tip to tip) sea star found in McMurdo Soundthat feeds primarily on sponges. Reproduction in this species occurs from approximately August toOctober during which time adults release either eggs or sperm into the ocean. Once fertilized, theresulting embryos drift with the currents andlive among the plankton where they developinto feeding larvae. Eventually, these larvaewill settle and change into a juvenile sea star.Two-day old

embryo

Three-day old multi-cellular embryo

Salps From page 1

“They are really the lit-tle self-propelled vacuumcleaners of the sea.”

- Larry Madin, biological oceanographer

44-day oldlarvae adult

Embryo and larvae photos by David GinsburgAdult sea star photo by Rob Robbins/ Special to The Antarctic SunFor more underwater sea life images and information, visit:http://scilib.ucsd.edu/sio/nsf/fguide/index.html

At a glance: sea star life cycle

December 5, 2004 The Antarctic Sun • 9

the country’s Foreign Minister Phil Goffwere on hand Monday to witness the ded-ication of the building, which is still underconstruction. When it’s finished sometimelate 2005, the center will be used to storeand care for equipment used by scientistsand staff in the field.

The dedication was part of a busy butsomber week-long trip to the Ice. Over theweekend, Hillary and the other officialscommemorated the 25th anniversary ofthe crash of Air New Zealand Flight 901.

The plane struck Mount Erebus on Nov.28, 1979, killing all 257 people aboard. Ithas been called the worst peace-timetragedy in New Zealand’s history. Thosewho died and those who labored on themountain to recover the remains wereremembered in ceremonies over the week-end.

On Sunday, Hillary popped over thehill to McMurdo Station to talk about his

1956-58 expedition to Antarctica as amember of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition organized by Britishgeologist Vivian “Bunny” Fuchs.

It was standing-room only for an esti-mated 500 people who wanted to join thisonce-in-a-lifetime opportunity to seeHillary at the American station. Somewaited nearly two hours in a queue thatmeandered through the halls and up anddown the stairs of the main building.

“What person gets the chance to seehim in Antarctica,” said Allison Barden, aprep cook from San Francisco. She passedthe time in line playing Scrabble with asmall group of others at the front of theline. “He was one of the few to seeMcMurdo with nothing here.”

The word “legendary” was on the tipsof many tongues.

“He’s a name you always hear,” saidDeborah Roth, who makes her home inNew Jersey and works in McMurdo as afield coordinator at the Berg Field Center.“I expect him to be like a grandpa and tell

some stories.”Hillary fit the part, dressed in a casual

suit coat and no tie, his salt and pepperyhair behaving on its own. He already wasseated at the front of the dining hall whenthe doors opened 35 minutes before thepresentation. Tables had been removedand extra chairs set up in a theater-likesetting.

People streaming in to find seatspaused to take snapshots while a fewbrave souls went straight for a handshakewith the living legend. Hillary’s cordialsmile and extended hand turned theseemingly brazen act into a warmendeavor.

Once officials from both stations hadtheir say, the former beekeeper, soldier,mountaineer, ambassador and Antarcticexplorer read from a script, occasionallystraying, to tell his story about crossing theRoss Ice Shelf, climbing the SkeltonGlacier and traversing to the South Pole

Hillary From page 1

See Hillary on page 10

At left, Hillary talks about his Antarctic expe-dition during the lecture at the McMurdoStation dining hall. Above, shuttle driver JohnDeaton asks a question. Below, people playScrabble, read and talk while waiting in lineto see Hillary.Top and bottom left photos by Brien Barnett / The Antarctic SunBottom right photo by Kristan Hutchison / The Antarctic Sun

10 • The Antarctic Sun December 5, 2004

across the Polar Plateau. The New Zealand Ross Sea Party, lead

by Hillary, was to lay depots for the mainteam lead by Fuchs, who was making hisway from the Weddell Sea to Scott Baseby way of the South Pole. The goal was tocomplete the task of crossing Antarctica. Itwas a goal set by Ernest Shackleton,whom Hillary admires greatly. Shackletonwas forced to abandon his quest during theEndurance expedition after he lost hisship. A second party coming from theRoss Sea labored in vain and tragedy toestablish depots that would never be used.

Two world wars later, the New Zealandparty undertook the role using underpow-ered Massey-Ferguson farm tractorsequipped with tracks over the wheels.Hillary’s team drove south from ScottBase, frequently finding crevasses the old-fashioned way: they fell into them.

“All of a sudden there was a terrific‘whoompf,’ and the whole tractor sinksdown and if you’re lucky you just clawyour way out the other side with yourheart pounding,” Hillary noted in a record-ing from several years ago.

An airplane would supply Hillary’s tra-verse team with fuel to run their tractorsalong with more fuel, food and other sup-plies to be cached along the way. As theyneared their final depot in mid-December1957, Hillary contemplated his instructions.

Fuchs had charged Hillary with layingdepots, not with reaching the Pole. Butwith less than a few hundred miles to goacross the barren Polar Plateau, simplywaiting for Fuchs wasn’t an attractiveoption for Hillary.

On Dec. 20 Hillary called his teamtogether to discuss whether to continue.They had stockpiled enough fuel to reachthe Pole, but there were many morecrevasses and other dangers along theway. It was a question of prudence versusglory. If they waited, they would be safefor now and Fuchs would be the first toreach the Pole overland by vehicle. It real-ly was no question for Hillary.

“I was fairly keen,” Hillary said withhis characteristic laid-back but earnestattitude. “If the engineers didn’t carry onthey could fly back to Scott Base and wewould carry on with one or two of ourtractors. Well this put them in such a tizzythey decided to carry on.”

The team left that day with three of thetractors. Within the first 50 miles, theystruck a number of large crevasses and hadto walk ahead, probing the snow by hand.Then they hit deep, soft snow and had tostop and shed items to reduce weight andregain focus.

Hillary From page 9

See Hillary on page 11

At top, Hillary leaves Building 155,the main building on station, afterlunch in the dining hall. At right,

Hillary examines an Antarctic scallop inside the Crary Lab. Below,lab manager Steve Alexander shows

Hillary a fish in the aquarium.

Photos by Brien Barnett / The Antarctic Sun

“We’re having a most interestingtime touring McMurdoStation, seeing morestrange fish than I’veseen in many a day.”

- Sir Edmund Hillary, in a radio phone call

to South Pole Station

“For three months we had been grind-ing our tractors across the AntarcticPlateau,” Hillary recounted. “Our nerveswere a little frayed from constant battleswith constant crevasses, deep, soft snowand a desperate shortage of gasoline.”

Hillary navigated with a sextant, but itwas failing and doubts began to creep inabout whether he could find the SouthPole station, which was erected on thesnow and ice just twoyears earlier.

“We decided that wewould drive grimly onuntil we reached the Poleor reached something,”Hillary said.

Twenty hours later, outof the corner of his eye,Hillary caught sight ofsomething moving in the vast nothingness.The movement was a marker flag, signalingthe station was near. Soon the welcome matwas put out for the weary team. It was Jan.4, 1958, and the first party since Robert F.Scott had reached the Pole by land.

The party dined on steaks, watched awestern — which Hillary says they foundabsurd after having faced real dangers ona true frontier — and rested. Weeks later,Fuchs rolled in, scolded Hillary a bit, thenthe two charged back to Scott Base, reach-ing it in time to board a ship for homebefore the winter set in.

“The trip to the Pole had been an excit-ing extra,” Hillary recalled. “At least it hadshown that if you were keen and resource-ful enough you could even get a trio offarm tractors across 1200 miles of snow

and ice, crevasse and sastrugi, soft snowand blizzard to reach the South Pole.”

The talk captivated the hundreds inattendance at McMurdo that Sunday.Hillary received several standing ovationsfrom an audience showing appreciation asmuch for his lifetime of achievement asfor his speech.

He encouraged them to explore.“I still say to the young who bemoan

the fact that there’s nothing left to do,‘Don’t you believe it. There’s plenty left todo, but you have to look for it.’ “

The popularity of aman such as Hillary wasunderscored by requestsfor autographs, whichwere funneled through acentral office. Hillary’simage appears on the $5Kiwi note and it washigh on the wish list formany signature seekers,

but tracking the cash proved to be toomuch and the bills were not accepted. Inthe end, about 250 items, including books,postcards, maps and photos were submit-ted for his signature. Late word was thatthe knighted adventurer was diligentlysigning them all.

Hillary is now an older man and wasaccompanied by his personal physician.He made his way on a tour of McMurdoStation with a Leki cane and sat often, pre-serving his strength for the long day thatincluded a bus tour, meet-and-greetmoments, Powerpoint presentations aboutvarious station activities and many photos.

Inside the aquarium at Crary Lab,dozens of scientists, lab staff and mediapeople crowded around Hillary as hewalked from tank to tank, looking at vari-

ous kinds of fish. The creatures that livebeneath the sea ice fascinated him and hetook time to talk with the scientists abouttheir research. In one tank, a giant fish —Dissostichus mawsoni or Antarctic cod —swam slowly in circles, rising as it nearedHillary and settling again. Later he peeredthrough a microscope at embryos, thenposed with everyone for a group photo.

Perhaps the most endearing momentcame a bit later during a tour of McMurdo’scommunications center. Hillary had finishedlistening to the explanation of how thingsworked and was shaking a few more hands,when one of the operators asked him if he’dlike to make a special call. Instructionsrelayed, Sir Ed picked up the phone:

“South Pole, South Pole. Can you hearme? This is Ed Hillary, down at McMurdoSound, calling South Pole Station, can youhear me?”

A person crackled through on the otherend. It was Tracey Sheeley, a operatorworking in the communications shackunder the Dome at South Pole Station, andyes, she could hear him.

“We’re having a most interesting timetouring McMurdo Station,” Hillary said.“Seeing more strange fish than I’ve seenin many a day.”

“Copy that. We haven’t seen any fishobviously,” Sheeley said. “We’ve heardrave reviews about your lecture …”

“Thank you. It was a very nice group ofpeople who all seemed to laugh at the righttime,” Hillary said, as usual putting crediton others. “Best of luck to you all, outthere in the far beyond.”

“Thank you,” Sheeley replied. “You’vecertainly been an inspiration to many ofus.”

“This is Ed Hillary, over and out.”

December 5, 2004 The Antarctic Sun • 11

Hillary From page 10

“There’s plenty left todo, but you have to lookfor it.”

- Sir Edmund Hillary, to young people

on adventure

Above, a scrimshaw cueball features scenes fromHillary’s life. The ball wasdesigned and donated inperson by Tina White, anartist and production cookat Mcmurdo Station. Atright, Sir Ed removes acloth covering a rock bear-ing a plaque dedicatingthe Hillary Field Center.

Above photo courtesy of Tina WhiteRight photo by Brien Barnett / The Antarctic Sun

12 • The Antarctic Sun December 5, 2004

Prof i le Looking past the pretty picturesBy Emily StoneSun staff

When Connie Samaras arrived in Antarctica last month shefound herself in an unusual position for a professionalphotographer — she had to force herself to look beyondthe beauty of the place.

“It’s very hard not to go Ansel Adams,” she said.Samaras was not here to photograph landscapes, no matter

how photogenic the continent is. She spent three weeks at theSouth Pole photographing the buildings, focusing particularly onthe contrast between the harsh place and the buildings that allowpeople to live there.

“I’m really fascinated by the intersection of extreme environ-ment and life-supporting architecture — the contradictionbetween those technological developments that allow the SouthPole Station to exist and the extreme environment,” said Samaras,a professor in the Department of Studio Art at the University ofCalifornia, Irvine.

Samaras guesses she took about 500 pictures during her stay.She will look through her film now that she’s left the Ice to com-pile the images into an exhibition that should be ready in about ayear. She was here on a National Science Foundation AntarcticArtists and Writers grant.

The contrasts of Antarctica intrigued Samaras on many levels.There’s the idea that people are living in the most remote spot onEarth, yet many work for a large American corporation; that thereis tourism in this nearly inaccessible spot; that you have a village-type community where everyone looks out for one other yet justoutside is a world that can kill you in minutes.

“The danger that you’re constantly in here is not a joke. Youcan’t take anything for granted,” she said. “The very existence of(the South Pole) lends itself to utopic visions and dystopic reali-ties.”

Her project was originally titled “Vast Active LivingIntelligence System,” after the title of a Philip K. Dick’s sciencefiction novel. She changed the title during her time at the Pole to“Le Reve,” which means “the dream” in French. She said hertime at Pole was like a waking dream. “Le Reve” is also the nameof a new casino in Las Vegas, a city that Samaras has pho-tographed often. Vegas, too, is a place of contradictions and dis -orientation, and what she calls “psychological and geographicdislocation.”

Few of her pictures have people in them. Samaras doesn’twant the viewer to make assumptions about a space based on therace, age, status or other characteristics of people in the photo.Her style, she said, “allows for a kind of deeper identification

with the actual physicalspace.”

She likes taking pic-tures that disorient theviewer. Some of hershots are from underthe new station lookingup, a vantage point thatshe said makes the sta-tion look like a crossbetween the StarshipEnterprise and LAXairport. In some pic -tures, it’s hard to tell

where the snow and iceare supposed to be.

Some are close-ups of architecture, which she said are disorient-ing because people never look at architecture close up.

Samaras said the final body of work will likely include dip-tychs, which are two separate images put together, that show alandscape and buildings visually linked by a common geometricshape. Despite her plan to shoot mainly buildings, she said it wasimpossible not to be drawn to the landscape. She was particular-ly amazed at the way the flat polar plateau looked like an ocean.

There were some obvious challenges with shooting at theSouth Pole. It’s cold and windy. Her equipment lasted only 20 to30 minutes outside. She wouldn’t have lasted much longer, shesaid, and was surprised by how much her thinking slowed down.

Samaras also was challenged in choosing her pictures.“It took me a while to quiet down and not look to the obvious-

ly dramatic,” she said.Antarctica is so heavily photographed, Samaras said, that most

people already have a vivid picture of it in their head before set-ting foot here. This was true for her, to a point.

“The Dome has been photographed so much,” she said, refer-ring to the former station. “Before I walked into it, I knew what itwould look like. But I didn’t.” She said she wasn’t prepared forthe quality of light in the Dome or the eerie feeling of standing ina space that feels simultaneously as if it were inside and outside.

There also were some unexpected childhood associations forSamaras. She grew up in New Mexico, and said the light ofAntarctica reminded her of the light in the desert. She is thedescendant of a long line of Greek peasants and said living in thesmall community at the Pole made her recall her parents’ andgrandparents’ stories about village life, both the good and the bad.

Samaras said the theme of illusions in Antarctica — the safe-ty, and community inside a building compared to the dangers out-side — began the moment she stepped off the plane. Samaras sawa fata morgana, the mirage created by the Antarctic light and airthat distort mountains and structures in the distance.

“The first thing I saw was a fata morgana, an illusion,” shesaid. “I said, ‘thank you for this greeting.’”

Photo by Connie Samaras / Special to The Antarctic SunOne of Connie Samaras’ photos from the South Pole. The ice on thepolar plateau reminded her of an ocean, and she often thought thebuildings there looked like they were drowning in the water.

Photo by Gabrielle Walker / Special to The Antarctic SunPhotographer Connie Samaras at theSouth Pole, where she spent three weeksphotographing the buildings.