GOLF 4-3-9 Antarctica Expedition 2008
Report Day 13 -- Saturday 08 November 2008 -- Flight to Taylor Valley and Scouting Deployment Sites
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GOLF 4-3-9 Antarctica Expedition 2008 |
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Today is the big day: Finally all of our staging, and preparations come to an end by delivering our cargo to the heliport. It is a bright, clear, but cold day and our flight takes us past the Royal Society Range and the Ferrar Glacier. Just past Ferrar, we are dropping into Taylor Valley, the most studied and visited Dry Valley in Antarctica. We flew over Lake Fryxell but continued up Taylor Valley to explore a site for an exposure experiment in a seasonal creek issuing from an ancient lava flow field. We found a very promising area, landed and then continued on to Lake Fryxell camp. There we were met by the local residents, the Bravo 426 team (Maciej Obryk and Annika Taylor) who are working with Peter Doran from the University of Chicago. They are measuring ice thickness and the ablation of the ice from the strong winter winds.
We just had enough time to build our tents, when our partner team Bravo 422 arrived (Amy Chiuchiolo, Andrew Babar, Trista Vick). They are members of John Priscu’s team from the University of Montana in Bozeman. Bravo 422 and 426 are members of the Long-Term Ecological Research group studying the glaciers, streams and lakes of Taylor Valley. We are coordinating our work with them because we can share ice drills and they provide us with ecological data from Lake Fryxell.
Life at Fryxell Camp is pretty cool. Everyone has pitched their tent behind the camp buildings for their own private space and sleeping quarters. We all share the (heated) Jamesway building and the laboratories. Camp Fryxell has cooking facilities and places to sit, work and read. We decided not to write any reports out there, because we needed the time for our work and we did not feel comfortable sending the big picture files across the rather slow internet connection that is available. It is fun to cook communal meals and discuss our work with the local experts on lake chemistry, physical properties and ice cover. Golf 439 calling from Fryxell Camp.
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