the antarctic sun, january 16, 2005 · by kristan hutchison sun staff russia sent a big plane to...

By Kristan HutchisonSun staff

Russia sent a big plane to pick up the little one thisweek.

Artur Chilingarov, Deputy chairman of the RussianState Duma, returned to Antarctica to retrieve the biplanehe had left there three years ago. He came with a groupof mechanics and media on an Ilyushin 76 cargo plane,under the auspices of the Russian polar program.

“We were sorry we couldn’t return the same year,”Chilingarov said through an interpreter.

Chilingarov had been aboard the Antonov 3T biplanewhen it originally flew from Patriot Hills to South Polein January 2002. After landing at the Pole, the biplanehad a problem when the pilot tried to restart it and had tobe left behind.

Chilingarov was waiting at Pegasus ice runway whenthe biplane landed Tuesday after its 6 1/2 hour flightfrom the Pole. A strong tailwind helped the plane duringthe flight, allowing it to complete the journey withoutrefueling. The Antonov 3T biplane landed at McMurdothe same way it originally had at the South Pole, show-ing off first by circling the runway and tipping its wingsat the small cluster of watchers below.

After celebratory hugs and photos, the RussianPolitician and polar explorer Artur Chilingarov, center, welcomes the pilot of theAntonov 3T biplane after its flight from South Pole to McMurdo Station while MichaelOrkin, from the independent Russian station NTV, films the moment.

January 16, 2005Published during the austral summer at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, for the United States Antarctic Program

Photo by Kristan Hutchison / The Antarctic Sun

See Biplane on page 10

Environmentalmonitoring

page 7

I N S I D E

“No sympathy,just paperwork.”

Q U O T E O F T H E W E E K

— Comment after a workerwas told to fill out a safety

report about a problemwith a vehicle

Emigre thinksbeyond borders

page 12


Green-hued and putrid, Pony Lake water issetting a new standard.

The shallow lake in the middle of the CapeRoyds penguin rookery is thick with microbesand nothing else. That makes it ideal for deter-mining the role those microbes play in cyclingcarbon through the environment and how theymay react to climate changes.

Water from Pony Lake soon will be used byscientists around the world as the perfect exam-ple of microbially-produced dissolved organicmatter. This will establish the standards for theInternational Humic Standards Society, whichprovides scientists with samples of organic sub-stances.

No such standard exists for lake water, par-tially because lakes in other locations have somuch organic carbon washing in from plants

along the shoreline that it is difficult to separatewhat comes from microbes in the lake. Scientistsare interested in carbon because it is the basicbuilding block of life on Earth.

There is a finite amount of carbon in theworld. More cannot be created, so what existsmust be recycled. Since life depends on the con-stant cycling of carbon, scientists try to under-stand the cycle and what could throw it off bal-ance. But it is like trying to trace the threads of aspider web.

“If you look at the rest of the world, all theorganic carbon in these streams and lakes andoceans and everything else has some form ofinfluence from higher plants, trees and grass.Even oceans have that influence. You have a hardtime escaping that,” said Yu-Ping Chin, a bio-chemist from Ohio State University. “The beautyof Antarctica is that the ponds and lakes and

See Pony Lake on page 9

Bye planeRussians retrieve their plane

Stinky water sets standard

2 • The Antarctic Sun January 16, 2005

It’s a Harsh Cartoon Matt Davidson

2005 IcebreakersShip: Polar Star KrasinManagement: USCG CommercialCommissioned: 1976 1976Length Overall: 121m 135mBeam: 25m 26mDraft: 8.5m 11mShaft horsepower: up to 75,000 41,400Displacement in metric tons: 13,405 20,240 Russian class: LL1 LL2Maximum open water speed: 33kph 36kphIcebreaking capability:

Continuous: 1.8m 1.8mBacking and ramming: 6.4m similarCargo: 400 tons limited

Primary sources: Krasin: http://www.fesco.ru/eng/fleet/vessels/icebreak/krasin.html; Polar Star: http://www.uscg.mil/datasheet/icepolr.htm

Cold, hard facts

Ross Island Chronicles By Chico

We’ve received word that there isa new species of killer whale inour waters.

Your mission,should you agreeto accept it, is togo undercover,infiltrate a podand get a DNAsample.

Your loyalty is unquestionable,but I must ask again ... what say you 00457?

Sir, I acceptthe mission.I’ll go put onmy disguise.

What do you think? Once again, if captured or killed, theempire can neither confirm nor denyyour existence.

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: Karl Horeis, Wendy Kober,

Amanda Barnett, Katie TogneriPublisher: Valerie Carroll,

Communications manager, RPSCContributions are welcome. Contact The

Sun at [email protected]. In McMurdo,visit our office in Building 155 or dial 2407.

Web address: www.polar.org/antsun


The future of waterfront homes inCalifornia and Florida maydepend on what glaciologists findbelow the Antarctic ice.

Slawek Tulaczyk is studying what con-trols the flow of the West Antarctic IceSheet, which could raise sea levels about5m if it were to slip into the ocean andmelt. Glaciologists have been consideringthe possibility since the 1970s.

Most of the ice movement occurs inchannels of faster moving ice, called icestreams, which are up to 100km wide andhundreds of kilome-ters long.

Tulaczyk refers to amap by Ian Joughin ofthe University ofWashington, where thestreams are colored toshow their velocity —red for thousands ofmeters a year, blue for hundreds, green forten.

“Thanks to Ian’s work, when I look atAntarctica I don’t see snow; I don’t seewhite; I see rainbow colors,” saidTulaczyk, who came to the continent forthe first time in November after studying itfrom afar for 10 years.

Tulaczyk is most interested in what isbelow the white snow anyway, at the baseof the ice. Conditions at the base deter-mine whether the ice is moving and atwhat speed.

Tulaczyk compares it to the ocean. Thetop is relatively flat and covered withwaves, in this case frozen. But at the basethe ground rises and falls into trenches,ridges, hills and valleys.

In this hidden landscape, water fillssubglacial lakes and streams run uphill,seemingly defying gravity. These unseencurrents lubricate the fast flow of icestreams toward the sea, potentially raisingglobal sea levels enough to flood citiesand change shorelines.

“For me the real continent is below theice,” Tulaczyk said. “It’s like thinkingabout another planet, only I’m standing onit.”

This season he finally stood on theKamb Ice Stream, where he set out eightcontinuously recording GPS instrumentsand a few hundred stakes to mark the icemovement. Tulaczyk’s colleague, BobJacobel, made radar surveys to check howmuch water is at the base of the ice.

Water at the bottom of the ice lubricatesit and allows it to slip smoothly over thesediments below. If the water freezes, theice sticks and stalls. The differencebetween freezing and thawing is a matterof delicate balance, with heat sources pro-vided by geothermal heat from the Earthand the friction of the ice moving, like thewarmth from rubbing hands together.

“In order to stop the ice stream, youhave to change the friction at the bottom,”Tulaczyk said.

Once an ice stream starts slowing forsome reason, it is caught into a cycle. Withless movement, there is less friction,meaning less heat. The water at the basecools and the ice slows even more.Eventually it will stop, Tulaczyk said.

That’s what has happened to the KambIce Stream, and may be happening soon tothe Whillans Ice Stream. Both used toflow into the Ross Ice Shelf. The Kambhas stopped while the Whillans is slowingdown, which has the effect of dammingtributaries to a river.

“If you take into account these twoevents, the ice shelf is getting 20 to 30 per-cent less ice than it did in the past,”Tulaczyk said.

If all the ice streams flowing into theRoss Ice Shelf stopped, the ice shelf wouldcease to exist, much like a river drying up.But before that, the lack of flow could theoretically cause the Ross Ice Shelf tobreak up, Tulaczyk said. That couldprompt the ice streams to begin flowingagain, because they would no longer be

held back by the ice shelf. A similar phe-nomenon occurred after the Larsen B iceshelf broke up in 2002; the glaciers feed-ing it surged forward.

The rapid breakup of the Larsen B iceshelf put about 2,000 cubic kilometers ofice into the ocean, roughly equivalent toall the snow that lands on the continent ina year.

“It’s basically a big pulse of freshwatergoing into the ocean,” Tulaczyk said.

If it were to restart, the Kamb icestream alone could contribute up to a halfmillimeter a year to global sea level.Recent models run by the team of glaciol-

ogists Tulaczyk workswith indicate that if allthe ice shelves were todisintegrate like theLarson B, the influxof fresh water wouldslow currents in the

Southern Ocean about 30 percent,Tulaczyk said.

Defying gravityWhile water drives the ice above, the

ice also drives the water below. Ratherthan simply finding a consistently down-ward path through the terrain, as waterdoes elsewhere, water under the ice issqueezed by the weight above it. If it facesa hillside with a slope less than 10 timesthe top slope of the ice above, the waterwill run uphill as it moves toward pointsof decreasing pressure.

“The water is driven more by the slopeon the surface than the slope below,”Tulaczyk said.

Along the way, the water can getcaught in depressions, creating pools andlakes. Eventually these fill up and thewater floods out into the next valley.

“We’ve found evidence that water doesnot flow in some boring, uniform fash-ion,” Tulaczyk said. “It’s basically makingjumps from one lake basin to another, likea frog.”

Part of his study on the Kamb IceStream was monitoring a subglacial laketo try to catch an entire fill and floodcycle. Though the one he watched issmall, just 5km across, he said the sametheory may apply to larger lakes likeVostok.NSF-funded research in this story: Slawek M.Tulaczyk, University of California, Santa Cruz,Earth Sciences.

January 16, 2005 The Antarctic Sun • 3

Map of ice stream movement by Ian Joughin,University of Washington.

The slippery slope below the ice

“For me the real continent is below the ice. ... It’s likethinking about another planet, only I’m standing on it.”

—Slawek Tulaczyk, glaciologist

Glaciologist studies the dynamics of ice streams draining into the Ross Ice Shelf

Travel guide: French Polynesia on $360 a DayBy Allen Berggren

On my last trip home from the Ice, Iopted for the round-the-world tick-et. This opened up the possibility ofmaking a stop in French Polynesia

for some advance R&R on my return to theIce this season. I had wanted to see Tahiti eversince I saw “Mutiny on the Bounty.” Whowouldn’t? I’ve also never been too fond of the12-hour, non-stop flight from LA toAuckland, so why not take a break on theway?

I had five days, enough for a quick lookat Tahiti and its neighboring island,Moorea. I even had the chance to learn afew new words of French. For example,the French word for computer is “ordina-teur.” “Mon ordinateur a été volé de machambre d’hotel,” means “My computerhas been stolen from my hotel room.” Andit was, the day after I arrived. My airlineticket and contact numbers were in thesame bag, so those were gone too, alongwith my romantic vision of FrenchPolynesia.

The flight from LA arrived in Papeeteabout 2 a.m. I was greeted by a trio ofPolynesian men singing and playing tradi-tional music in the arrival hall. After pass-ing several hours in a coffee shop, I caughtthe ferry to Moorea. The sea was calm, theair was cool and the mountain tops disap-peared into the clouds — everything youcould ask for in an island paradise.

I rented a car and set out to exploreMoorea. I passed Cook’s Bay andOpunohu Bay on the island’s north coast,then came to Hauru Point, about half wayaround the island from the ferry terminal.There I found a campground on the shorewith a lovely sea breeze. A co-workerstayed there a few years before, and hadmade a note in my guidebook, sayingsomething like “perfect.” I took a room ina row of bungalows.

The next morning I went to brush myteeth and shower in the shared bathroom.When I got back to the room my comput-er bag was gone. The handy travel emer-gency phone number the U.S. AntarcticProgram gave us was also in the bag, so Ireally felt isolated.

This was on a Friday morning. I wouldneed to get in touch with Air New Zealandin Papeete before their office closed tofind out how to replace the tickets. I wasn’t able to get my phone card to workon Moorea, but the proprietor of therestaurant called Air New Zealand and letme talk to them. I would need a copy ofmy tickets from the travel agent inChristchurch and a police report to getthem re-issued.

I found the police station (gendarmerie)and got the police report with some diffi-culty. The gendarme didn’t speak Englishand the French I learned in high schoolwas rusty. A lady at the pizzeria acrossfrom the gendarmerie had helped me writedown what I needed to say, and I think shemust have called and told the agent whatmy situation was, because he immediatelyproduced a multilingual theft report.

By the time I had taken care of every-thing on Moorea, it was getting late. I hadthe car until the next morning, so I decid-ed to stay on Moorea an additional night. Iwasn’t too keen to go back to the samecampground, so I found a mid-range hotelon Cook’s Bay. “Mid-range” in FrenchPolynesia is not kind to budgets. Neitherare rental cars.

Saturday morning, I took the ferry backto Papeete. It was Saturday in Denver andSunday in New Zealand, so I couldn’t domuch about calling anyone for help. I sentmy supervisor an e-mail with the subjectline “Help! Lost tickets in Tahiti.” Yeah,right. Try to get sympathy with a line likethat. I asked him to try to find some con-tact numbers — travel emergency hot lineor Christchurch travel office, etc. In theend, I found an old e-mail from the travelagent in Christchurch, so I also sent an e-mail to him, explaining my situation.

There was nothing more to be done inPapeete, so I picked up the car I hadreserved there, and drove along the northshore of Tahiti. The drive was beautiful,and my frame of mind slowly recovered.

The next morning, I drove back toPapeete along the south shore and found ahotel near the waterfront where I couldreceive faxes. By then it was Monday in

New Zealand, so I called the travel agent.He said he would look up my ticket andfax me a copy. He also gave me the num-ber of the travel office in Christchurch.They said they would fax me a copy of mysupport letter.

With that taken care of I was able toenjoy Papeete for the rest of the day. In theevening I had supper at a “roulotte,” whichis an open air food stall on wheels in theparking lots along the waterfront. Come tothink of it, the food was awful, but theatmosphere was fun.

Monday morning, I went to the AirNew Zealand office in town to get mytickets re-issued. The faxed copy of theticket my travel agent had sent was all Ineeded. I don’t even remember showingthem the police report, although I had it.

As I checked in I could hear the trio ofTahitian singers welcoming anotherincoming flight. I knew I had been lucky.If I had lost my ticket on the last dayinstead of the first, I wouldn’t have madethat flight, and if my passport had been inthe same bag, it would have been evenworse. Next time, I’ll e-mail those emer-gency contact numbers to myself inadvance.


Perspectives Perspectives

Photo by Kristan Hutchison / The Antarctic SunThis is Allen Berggren’s 14th year workingin the McMurdo Station water plant.

the week in weather

Not so quiet weekCompiled from reports by Katie Hessand other sources

Although only one LC-130 Herculesarrived the week of Jan. 6-12 because of badweather at McMurdo, South Pole Stationwas by no means quiet. The station wasabuzz with anxious anticipation wonderingwhen fuel, cargo, crew, grantees and evenan outgoing medical patient would beginmoving again.

A crew of Russian mechanics, engineersand pilots remained here an extra weekwaiting for favorable conditions to fly theirTwin Otter-sized Antonov 3 plane over themountains and on to McMurdo. The planeand crew landed safely and met a Russiancargo plane, which had been standing by atMcMurdo. (See story on page 1)

Kenn Borek Air Twin Otters were by farthe most mobile air traffic this past week.They flew to many field camps, bringing asmall team from Patriot Hills to the SouthPole and retrieving a Chinese traverse expe-dition member who required medical evac-uation from the continent. The traverse isthe Kunlun Dome A Inland IcecapExpedition, currently the most importantprogram of the 21st Chinese Arctic andAntarctic Expedition. The expedition was at4,022m in altitude on the Dome ofInaccessibility about 960km from the geo-graphic South Pole.

Back at the station, researchers wererelieved to meet some team members whowere delayed a week or more on their trav-els south. The new team members startedtrickling into the station on Jan. 11. Thoughmuch material for new station constructionis still scheduled to arrive in the next month,the construction team plowed forward thisweek and hung the last of the steel on the A4pod. A4 is the third of four pods that willextend out the south side of the station.

An ambitious flight schedule has beenset for the last month to finish flying in fueland supplies for the winter, constructionmaterials for the new station, and granteeswho need to get some Ice time with theirprojects during the short summer season.

New NSF rep on stationBy Kerry KellsPalmer correspondent

Marie Bundy, the summer season NSFRepresentative, recently arrived at PalmerStation.

Bundy joined the NSF Office of PolarPrograms (OPP) as an associate programofficer in October 2003. Bundy is a zoo-plankton ecologist, and was based at theAcademy of Natural Sciences ResearchCenter in Southern Maryland in a cura-tor/researcher position. She obtained herPhD from the University of GeorgiaInstitute of Ecology in 1994. She joins theNSF as part of the IntergovernmentalPersonnel Act in a rotator spot with OPP.

During her first week at Palmer Station,Bundy volunteered to give the Wednesdaynight science lecture. She spoke about theOffice of Polar Programs, theInternational Polar Year and her experi-ences at McMurdo and the South Pole lastsummer. She accompanied her talk withphotographs of the sites she visited.

Bundy detailed the function of the NSFand the OPP in Antarctica “to promote the

progress of science; to advance the nation-al health, prosperity and welfare of thecountry.” She further explained how theNSF budgets for and manages the U.S.Antarctic Program and contracts for com-mercial support and transportation. TheOPP is responsible for Antarctic sciences,arctic sciences, polar research support andenvironmental protection.

Bundy explained the NSF’s grant fund-ing process. The process begins with aproposal submitted by the scientist(s).Scientists review the proposal for intellec-tual merit and broader impacts. A panel ofscientists convenes to assess the propos-als. Science staff, polar research staff andRaytheon Polar Services Co. staff thenassess the logistical needs for the mostviable projects. Next, it is determined howmany of the most competitive proposalscan be funded.

While at Palmer Station, Bundy hasjoined seabird researchers on day-longstudies at the local islands, Long TermEcological Research near-station sam-pling and hopes to join the scientists of theresearch vessel Laurence M. Gould whenthey visit oceanographic stations nearPalmer. She is interested in all of the sci-


around the continent

PALMER

SOUTH POLE

McMurdo StationHigh: 36F / 2C Low: 27F / -3CMax. sustained wind: 36mph / 57kphWindchill: -8F / -22C

South Pole StationHigh: 0F / -18C Low: -13F / -25CPeak wind: 18mph / 29kphMax. Physio-altitude: 3103m

See Continent on page 6

Palmer StationHigh: 44F / 7C Low: 29F / -2CMax. sustained wind: 30mph / 48kphPrecipitation: 9mm

Opher Ganel / Special to The Antarctic SunThe U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star is docked at the ice pier at McMurdo Station.The ship is being repaired before returning to duty. See update on Page 6.

ences currently underway at PalmerStation and wants to be an active part ofthe community. She will be at PalmerStation until the first week of Februaryand return to NSF after the LTER cruise.

Nathaniel B. PalmerCompiled from reports by Alice Doyle

Weather was marginal on Jan. 6 and thoseonboard decided not to deploy a satellitereceiver. Scientists use satellite images tolocate plankton blooms. The fluorometrynumbers remained high in the area, indicat-ing the bloom is still in full force.

The barometer dropped overnight, lead-ing to yet another day of high winds out ofthe south and south-southwest. After aweather report indicated that conditionswould remain the same for the next 48 hours,the ship sought shelter in the ice. The shipheaded west to Newnes Bay in the Ross Seawhere microwave images indicated therewas ice. The ride was less than ideal as wavescame at the ship from the side and increasedthroughout the day.

They arrived at the ice edge late the fol-lowing night and waited until 5 a.m. to findtheir way through. The mission was to findice algae for various groups onboard.

“It was a treat to be back in the ice (andout of open water!),” wrote Alice Doyle,marine projects coordinator.

The first floe was large enough to drop thegangway. Unfortunately this floe lacked icealgae. But it was large enough for everyoneto get off and stretch their legs. They pro-ceeded to two other floes and found algae.

On Jan. 9, the weather finally cooperatedand the ship got in a full day of sampling.Operations continued to run smoothlythrough the following day.

Laurence M. GouldCompiled from reports by Andrew Nunn

The Laurence M. Gould is taking watersamples as part of its annual Long TermEcological Research Cruise. The month-long cruise west of the Antarctic Penninsulastudies marine and terrestrial food webs bysailing along a predetermined grid and tak-ing water samples at various spots.

Mild weather and mirror-flat seas at thebeginning of the week made operationseasy. The new net depth sensor and knucklecrane fairlead head are working well.

“Weather is still spooky calm,” reportedAndrew Nunn, marine projects coordinatoron Jan. 8, and all operations continued torun smoothly.

The next day, the weather picked up,making it feel a bit more like Antarctica. OnJan. 10, the wind kicked up in the afternoon,and scientists had to skip two sampling sta-tions. They were able to get back to the twostations the following day as the weatherimproved.

POLAR STARBy Lt. Cmdr. Don Peltonen,Ship operations

The Polar Star remains moored at theMcMurdo Station ice pier. A commercialdive team, Phoenix International, arrivedJan. 11 to begin repairs on the U.S. CoastGuard ship’s propeller hubs. PhoenixInternational has previous experience div-ing in the icy waters of McMurdo Sound,because they made a similar repair to thePolar Sea in 2002.

The repair to retorque bolts on the hubsis expected to take approximately six toeight days. The Polar Star is expected todepart the ice pier on Jan. 20 to resumechannel operations.

Tours of the ship are available forMcMurdo residents while the ship ismoored at the ice pier. The ship’s store isexpected to be open during tour hours.

OTHER SHIPSTanker Paul Buck and the Russian ice-

breaker Krasin are en route to the RossSea with a projected arrival of Jan. 20 atthe sea ice edge.

CREAM going for recordBy Brien BarnettSun staff

The Cosmic Ray Energetics and MassExperiment, CREAM, is looking to set thelong duration balloon all-time flightrecord Monday afternoon.

The current record at just under 32 daysis not in Antarctica, but worldwide.

Scientists said the balloon carryingCREAM is working well on its third flightaround the Pole. The balloon and its multi-million dollar scientific payload launchedDec. 15, from McMurdo Station and hasbeen pleasing the scientists.

“We are getting excellent data,” wroteEun-Suk Seo, principal investigator of theproject to study high-energy particles.

As of Saturday, CREAM was at 78-degrees latitude and had just passed 0-degrees longitude at a height of about37km.

If it continues on that track, the balloonshould set the record for the longest flightwith days to spare.

At this point the earliest the flightwould end would be the middle of nextweek -- several days after setting therecord.

Track CREAM’s progress online athttp://tower.nsbf.nasa.gov/ice0405.htm.

Continent6 • The Antarctic Sun January 16, 2005

From page 5

If you could go on a science project, which one and why?

“The guys onMount Erebus

there. I’d like toget up there sometime.”

Ben Morin,McMurdo

janitor from Portland, Maine,

second season.

“Ice core traverse.Because there’s somuch information

down there.”

Joe Bayley, South Pole

production cook from Seattle, first season

“B-256-P (a polarinsect study)

because I want tobe a ‘bugger.’”

Kelsi Giswold, Palmer Stationpainter helper from Seattle, first season

SHIPS

BALLOON

By Emily StoneSun staff

They’re testing the waters aroundMcMurdo Station. And the land, for thatmatter.

A group of scientists from Texas A & MUniversity and University of TexasMarine Science Institute spent three weeksin town taking soil samples from in andaround the station, as well as underwatersediment samples from McMurdo Sound.The samples show how much contamina-tion there is in the soil and sedimentaround McMurdo Station, which providesa measurement of human impact on thearea.

The land samples will be tested mainlyfor fuel contaminants. The marine samplesare tested for fuel and PCBs, which wereused in heating and electrical systems, andare now banned in the U.S. The scientistsrecord the animals living within themarine samples, because they are indica-tors of the health of the ecosystem there.They will also test the toxicity of the sedi-ment and look at what contaminants are

found in larger animals, like urchins ormussels, which the divers collect whiletaking the sediment cores.

This is the second year the group hascome to McMurdo on this round of test-ing. They were here several years ago on afour-year pilot project. Their job then wasto come up with the best method forobserving and measuring the impacts ofscience and operations at McMurdo as itrelated to soil and sediment contamina-tion. Much of the contamination is thoughtto be from waste management practicesbefore the current comprehensive wastemanagement and spill reporting proce-dures went into place. The scientists didfield work and historical research to deter-mine where to test, what to test for andhow many samples they needed to take.They are now following the system theydeveloped to do their testing.

The Antarctic Treaty requires countriesto monitor the environmental impact oftheir activities. The National ScienceFoundation funded the Texas group to domuch of this monitoring, which is in keep-

ing with the government’s goal of envi-ronmental stewardship.

“We’re all trying to get comparabledata sets so we have a bigger picture of thecontinent as a whole,” said Polly Penhale,environmental officer for the Office ofPolar Programs at National ScienceFoundation.

The group’s goal is to produce resultsthat can help with decision-making andenvironmental management. They willmonitor, for example, whether heavilyimpacted areas remain stable over time, ifthey tend to spread, or if there is a changein the concentration of contaminants.

This year, there are 164 terrestrial sam-pling sites. The scientists go to the site,mark off a one-meter grid, and then scoopsoil into a jar. They’re also collecting soilfrom relatively undisturbed spots inArrival Heights to compare to McMurdo’ssoil.

Results from the group’s preliminaryproject showed that only 2 percent of siteshad fuel contamination levels that were of


Contaminants measured near McMurdo

See Monitoring on page 8

Diver Jack Baldelli surfaces in the dive shack in Winter Quarters Bay after taking underwater sediment samples for a science group testingcontaminant levels around McMurdo Station. Scientist Andrew Klein, right, and diver Rob Robbins, center, help Baldelli take off his gear.

Photo by Emily Stone / The Antarctic Sun


concern, scientist Steve Sweet said. Thesewere from small areas by the helicopterpad and at fueling stations. The 164 terres-trial sites that the group is testing include112 that have known contaminants and 52that are randomly selected across the sta-tion.

There are fewer marine sampling spots,but it takes more work to get the sediment.There are three dive holes in WinterQuarters Bay, which is between the stationand Hut Point; three near the wastewateroutflow and three at Cape Armitage. Thesamples from Cape Armitage, which is farenough away so that the station’s outputdoes not affect it, are used as a comparison

for the samples taken near the station.Divers collect samples from 12m, 24m

and 36m below the surface at each hole asthe ground slopes down. The samples arebasically soil cores, which are taken whenthe diver pushes a plastic tube into the sed-iment and then caps it.

Sally Applebaum, the ecologist in thegroup, takes the cores from the divers. Sheputs a hockey-puck like plug into the bot-tom of the tube and nudges it up. Thisallows her to carefully take the top 3cm ofsediment and put it in a jar, and then takethe next 7cm and put it in a separate jar.This way, she gets samples from the twodistinct layers, which contain their ownecological communities.

Applebaum will count and identify allthe tiny critters living inside her marinesamples. Their numbers tell her about thehealth of the system. For example, a largenumber of polychaetes, which are marineworms, can indicate that the system isunhealthy, she said. And within the poly-chaetes, there are certain species that pointtoward higher or lower levels of contami-nation. In general, small, short-lived ani-mals indicate an unhealthy system andlarger, long-lived animals indicate ahealthy one.

Sweet takes samples from within thecores, which he will test for contaminants.

In all, the group is putting 294 jarsfilled with dirt on the annual resupply boat

to the States. The jars will get to Texas foranalysis in April.

Aside from the problem areas on land,the only place where contaminant levelsare high enough to be of concern is atWinter Quarters Bay, Sweet said. A fuelsmell emanates from the soil inside thedive hut there. Samples from WinterQuarters Bay have shown highly elevatedlevels of fuel and PCBs, Sweet said. Thecontaminants there are primarily from thestation’s old landfill on the hill next to thebay.

“This is something that happened awhile back,” Sweet said.

The contaminant levels have remainedlocalized in that area, the scientists said.

“It’s very stable,” Applebaum said.“It’s not spreading out to the other parts ofthe bay.”

The NSF studied the question of decon-taminating the bay, but decided against it,Penhale said. There is a lip, or shoal, at theedge of the bay that keeps the contami-nants from spreading into open water.Many of the contaminants are very light-weight. The fear is that if the contaminantsare disturbed in the process of removingthem, they will become re-suspended inthe water column and float up and over thelip of the bay, she said.

NSF-funded research in this story, MahlonKennicutt, Texas A & M University.

Steve Sweet of Texas A & M Universitylabels samples taken from underwater atWinter Quarters Bay near McMurdo Station.

Marine scientist Sally Applebaum pushes a sediment core sample out of its container as fel-low scientist Steve Sweet helps. The sediment is from the bottom of Winter Quarters Baynext to McMurdo Station. The scientists will measure the health of organisms in the sampleand test for contaminants.

Monitoring From page 7

“We’re all trying to getcomparable data setsso we have a biggerpicture of the continentas a whole.”

—Polly Penhale environmental officer,

Office of Polar Programs




streams lack that completely.”Pony Lake represents a simple and iso-

lated system. There is no rainwater run-ning off and carrying nutrients from thesoil into the lake. The input of nitrogenfrom the penguin colony, in the form ofguano particles blown into the lake, is eas-ily identified.

The limited system offers an opportuni-ty for biologists and biochemists to isolatehow much impact microbes have on thelake chemistry and carbon cycle. While awater sample taken from a river inColorado or Montana would have so muchmaterial from plants the microbial inputwould be lost, in Pony Lake the microbeswork alone.

“The microbe is ubiquitous. Everywhereyou’re going to have microorganisms,” saidChristine Foreman, a limnologist fromMontana State University. “But here we canactually focus on what their actual contribu-tion is to the ecosystem and carboncycling.”

Four investigators from four separateinstitutions are collaborating on a project tostudy how changes in the climate and radia-tion can alter the microbial pool of carbon.Besides Ping and Foreman, DianeMcKnight from the University of Coloradoat Boulder and Penney Miller from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology areinvolved. Several students and postdocs arealso on the research team — Ryan Fimmen,Jennifer Guerard, Chris Jaros, Rose Merin

Cory, and Kaelin Cawley.“This is the only place in the world we

can study it.” said Chin.He and McKnight realized the potential

of Pony Lake seven years ago, when theywere studying the dissolved organic mat-ter in the lake. The lake has a rich biosys-tem that has been stable for at least 100years, since the microbiologist on ErnestShackelton’s Nimrod expedition identifiedthe algae.

This year the researchers arrived inNovember, so they could sample waterfrom the lake throughout the season as thealgae went from frozen to full-bloom. Thefirst water sample they took was an icecore 1.5m down to the lake bottom. Itcame out looking like a layered popsicle.The top layer of ice was nearly clear. Themiddle was yellowish. And the bottomlayer was a murky green that becameunbearably pungent when melted.

Now the researchers wade into the laketo gather their samples. At Crary Lab,Cory takes the dissolved organic carbonout of the water column by filtering thewater, dropping the pH and adding acid tomake it sticky. Then she pumps the solu-tion through a glass column that has beenpacked with plastic beads. The organicmaterial sticks to the white beads, whichbecome coated in a green slime. Then theorganic matter is stripped off using a basesolution. The solution is dried to obtain aconcentrated powder that looks like a

ground spice. It takes about 100 liters ofwater to get one teaspoon of powder.

“It’s pretty much like environmentaltea,” Cory said.

Water samples from streams or lakes upnorth usually produce a brown color, butthe Pony Lake water samples end up look-ing green or yellow.

“So instead of looking like tea, it looksmore like Mountain Dew,” Chin said.

However, the smell is an unappetizingaroma of urea and sulfur, as if rotten eggswere breaking open and mixing with thejuices of a rancid compost pile.

To get an idea of the chemical process-es prompted by exposure to the sun, thesamples are put into custom-blown, 74cm-tall quartz tubes, which let in ultravioletradiation. The six tubes are rotated at 90degree angles to the sun for 12 hours, thenexamined for changes in the chemistry andbiology.

The team is already seeing somepromising results and they expect to pub-lish their first papers this year.

“We’re getting little bits and piecesright now and they’re really enticing,”Foreman said.

So far, all the experiments have showna consistent pattern. When the water isfirst exposed to sunlight it goes throughintense chemical changes for about eighthours, then this begins to drop or level off.

Pony Lake From page 1

See Pony Lake on page 10

Christine Foreman holds an ice core takenfrom Pony Lake in November, showing thelayer of green organic matter on the bottom.

Rose Cory kneels on Pony Lake to cut outan ice core by hand in November, with Mt.Erebus in the background.

Ryan Fimmen and Christine Foreman wadethigh-deep into Pony Lake to take watersamples.

Photo by Christine Foreman / Special to The Antarctic Sun Photo by Rose Cory / Special to The Antarctic SunPhoto by Rose Cory / Special to The Antarctic Sun


This pattern is different than what isseen from the same types of experi-ments at midlatitudes and northernextremes, Chin said.

He’s done similar work on LakeToolik in the Alaskan arctic, so he isable to compare the two. Up there, mostof the carbon in the water is leachedfrom the soil in the first week afterspring melt. The carbon is old, comingfrom the breakdown of land plants.

In Pony Lake, all the carbon isfresh and newly generated by the algaegrowing in the lake. The lake algae isvery productive and fast growing.Foreman has been culturing the vari-ous algae and bacteria and will identi-fy them based on DNA analysis whenshe returns to her lab in Montana.

At the beginning of January the lakewater contained 26 parts per million of

carbon, about twice what it had beenwhen Chin arrived in mid-December.The team expects it to double againbefore mid-January, when they will col-lect 2 cubic meters of Pony Lake waterto set the standard. Because the penguinrookery and lake are in an area special-ly protected by the Antarctic Treaty, thewater will be hauled over the hill 20liters at a time to a helicopter landingspot outside the rookery. There it will bepoured into 55 gallon drums and flownback to McMurdo Station.

The water will be processed inCrary Lab and shipped to the U.S.Then scientists around the world willbe able to ask for samples of the wateronline from the International HumicStandards Society.

“We’re doing basically a service forthe scientific community,” said Chin.

Pony Lake From page 9

Biplane From page 1

Russian mechanics remove the wings on the Antonov 3T biplane, preparing it to be loaded into the Ilyushin 76 cargo plane for the journeyto Russia. Below, National Science Foundation representative George Blaisdell, in the baseball cap, congratulates the pilot of the Antonov3Twhile cameraman Michael Orkin films for Russian television.

Penguin feathers on a mat of algae in Pony Lake.The feathers and guano blow into the lake, provid-ing nutrients for microbial life.

mechanics worked all night to dismantlethe plane. They removed the wings andprop, then loaded it into the belly of theIlyushin 76 waiting on Pegasus ice run-way. On Wednesday, the Ilyushin carriedaway the smaller plane and the 42 visitingRussians.

“They have done this job in equal orless time than they proposed and with lessdifficulty than we expected,” said GeorgeBlaisdell, representative for the NationalScience Foundation.

The Antonov 3T was ready to fly aftera successful test flight at the South Pole onJan. 4, but the final flight was delayed bybad weather at McMurdo Station andBeardmore Glacier, where they planned to

stop and refuel if needed.“If it hadn’t been for the weather, this

would have been an in and out deal,”Blaisdell said.

The Russian guests enjoyed Americanhospitality while they waited in McMurdofor the biplane.

“We feel here at home sometimes morethan at home, because this community isvery, very friendly; so many good faces,intellectual faces,” said SnezhanaKrasinskaya, a representative from theCentral Polus expedition center in Russia.“It’s that kind of community where Iwould like to be.”

The Central Polus organizes expeditions to the North Pole, creating

temporary tent camps on the Arctic Sea iceas a base for about 40 researchers andtourists.

“It’s what you do here, but on driftingice,” Krasinskaya said.

Michael Orkin, the cameraman forNTV, an independent television station inRussia, said that during the wait inMcMurdo he’d had time to film “everynail in McMurdo,” but that getting toknow people on the station made the waitpleasant.

“We really enjoyed our stay here andreally appreciated everything people didfor us,” Orkin said. “We made manyfriends here and we didn’t expect it.”

Photos by Kristan Hutchison / The Antarctic Sun

Photo by Christine Foreman / Special to The Antarctic Sun

January 16, 2005 The Antarctic Sun •11

The Russian biplane retrieved from theSouth Pole is an update on a classicmodel.

The Antonov 3T biplane was originallybuilt as an Antonov 2, a multipurpose air-plane produced by the Soviet block since1947. About 15,000 Antonov 2’s werebuilt and commonly used as crop dustersor by airlines in remote parts of the USSR,according to The Complete Encyclopediaof World Aircraft. But the jet-enginedAntonov 2 did not stand up to the rigors ofagricultural work and many ended up per-manently parked at secondary airports.

A decreased demand for the Antonov 2led the aircraft manufacturer Polyot toretrofit an Antonov 2 with a turbopropengine in 1998, creating the Antonov 3. Asthe first of its kind, the Antonov 3T 9801that flew to the South Pole was supposedto promote a reactivation and moderniza-tion of the Antonov design. The potentialmarket for the conversion was estimatedat about 2,000 aircraft from LatinAmerica, Iraq, Cuba, Hungary, and

Yugoslavia. The prototype biplane’s flightto the South Pole was a further effort todemonstrate the small plane’s abilities.

“It was a test flight, and very importantfor technicians and scientists to study,”said Konstanti Zaytsev, an advisor fromthe Russian Duma who accompaniedArtur Chilingarov.

More Antonov 2’s have been convertedto turboprop in the last three years,Konstantin said, though, “not enough forour requests from different regions,because Russia is a polar country and thisaircraft can land in different conditions.”

Like the Twin Otters used by the U.S.Antarctic Program, the Antonov can beused with wheels, skis or floats.

Now that the Antonov 3T has beenfrozen at the Pole for three years, Russiantechnicians and scientists will study theeffects the cold had on the plane’s compo-nents, such as rubber seals and the crackedglass of the windshield. The informationmay be used for further updates, Zaytsevsaid.

New version of an old plane

“We feel here at homesometimes more thanat home, because thiscommunity is very,very friendly.”

—Snezhana Krasinskaya, representative from the Central

Polus expedition center in Russia

A glimpse inside the cockpit of the Antonov 3.

Above right, Russian mechanics empty fuelout of the Antonov 3T biplane. A tailwindhelped the plane make it from the SouthPole to McMurdo without having to refuel.

Photos by Kristan Hutchison / The Antarctic Sun

Right, a mechanic unscrews acoverings on the biplane wing.


The man passing out plumbingparts in McMurdo may bethinking about the meaning oflife. Or what constitutes cul-

ture. Or how the latest Simpson’s car-toon is a gentle criticism of Americansociety.

Stefan Pashov thinks too deeply togive simple answers, no matter howstraightforward the question.

Asked when he was born heanswered, “In this life, this body, Iwas born 1958, July 14, in Sofia,Bulgaria.”

He stayed there his first 28 years,earning a masters in world literatureand linguistics with minors in philo-sophy and psychology from Sofia’sGovernment University. Then he didtwo years of graduate study in histo-ry and the theory of culture.

“He’s very intelligent. He shouldbe teaching university rather than bedown here,” said Ilko Major, whoworked with Pashov in supply twoseasons ago. They had esoteric dis-cussions ranging from religion tocosmology while they took inventoryand stocked shelves. “He’s a veryspirited guy. He was good to workwith.”

Pashov’s first attempt to escapethe communist regime was immortal-ized in song. He was 18 and stole awaterbike from the beach with a friend. They were pedaling bystarlight across the Black Sea toward Turkey when the borderpatrol caught them. He and his friend wrote a song about the inci-dent, which a Bulgarian rock star turned into a popular hit.

On another botched attempt, he stole a boat from the dock,which turned out to belong to the border police. After that, hestarted considering more exotic methods, including a hot air bal-loon or crawling through a network of natural caves.

Eventually, Pashov left the country on a one-week visitor’svisa. To get the visa in 1986, he endured a year of interrogationstwice a week at the local police station, each lasting three to fourhours.

“That almost brought me to the verge of psychological break-down,” said Pashov.

The visa cost him a year’s salary as a teacher, along withmoney he borrowed from his parents. His parents understood theywould probably never see Pashov again and that the family riskedretribution from the government. Under the law in Bulgaria at thetime, violating a visa was automatically punished with a three-year prison sentence.

“You can define it in positive and negative terms, what pro-pelled me from the country and what drew me to the rest of theworld. In my case, it was mostly the positive, striving for some-thing greater,” Pashov said of his reasons for leaving. “I wantedto delve into first-hand experience of the world.”

In France, a Catholic organization gave Pashov a place to stay

and after a year he was offeredrefugee status in the United States. Ajob bureau found him a position fish-ing for crab in the Bering Sea.Pashov arrived in Seattle pennilessand slept a few nights in a car beforeboarding the fishing boat.

“From there it was all free sail-ing,” Pashov said.

The work was miserable — 12-hour shifts knee deep in cold waterfor less than $4 an hour. His crew-mates were mostly ex-convicts fromaround the world, prone to fighting.

In that crowd, an 18-year-oldwoman from Washington State stoodout like a flower growing in a dump.After two years of world travel, AmyGomes was working to earn moneyto get back on the road.

Stefan and Amy have been to-gether ever since, working a fewmonths at a time and then traveling.They’ve been across Asia, the MiddleEast, Europe, North Africa, CentralAmerica, North America, Australiaand New Zealand.

“I identify myself visually withher face, because I see her face moreoften than my own,” said Pashov,who married Amy in 1992.

They were in Greece in 1990,when Pashov heard that his father,who was still in Bulgaria, was dyingof cancer.

“I decided I had to go. I didn’t careabout the consequences,” Pashov said.

He asked the Greek border guards not to shoot if he came run-ning back toward. Then he walked across to the Bulgarian borderguards, not knowing if they’d handcuff him or welcome him.With the communist regime beginning to crumble, they just askedif he had any U.S. dollars to exchange.

The Pashovs heard about working in Antarctica while on aboat in Alaska, but didn’t apply until 2001. After three years trav-eling in Southeast Asia and India, their travel fund was almostgone. They were in New Zealand hitching rides and camping outwhen they met someone from the Ice on a hike. That promptedthem to write up their resumes and catch a standby flight toDenver for the April job fair. They were both hired and haveworked in McMurdo each summer since.

Pashov works for supply and Amy works in the same buildingas a workorder scheduler for facilities engineering, maintenanceand construction. Their role in the community extends deeper.Pashov translates when Russians come through town, mostrecently when they came to get the biplane left at the South Polethree years ago and he may help with the Russian icebreaker onits way. He also hosts classes on topics ranging from world reli-gions to western civilization.

“Strange things happen in life. I remember looking at a mapand thinking, ‘What will be the one place in the world I probablywon’t see? Probably Antarctica. Most maps don’t even have it,’”Pashov said. “I literally dropped off the margin of the map.”


Prof i le Bulgarian refugee explores world

Photo by Kristan Hutchison / The Antarctic SunStefan Pashov considers Homer Simpson a classicalantihero, who's suffering has an epic proportion andappeals to "the likeable slob in each one of us.”

the antarctic sun, january 16, 2005 · by kristan hutchison sun staff russia sent a big plane to...

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