Today I get to go to Heald Island again. It is this amazingly beautiful place that very few, if any, people have seen before. The idea that we might be the first to ever visit this place is almost incomprehensible. How many people can say they were the first ever to see a place? It makes me stop and think about the first explorers who braved so many dangers to be the first. I feel a bit guilty when I realize that I get to ride in a rather comfortable helicopter, wear “Big Red” (my arctic coat) and bunny boots with stabilizers so that I don’t slip on the ice, and we have an entire field camp set-up that includes a kerosene heater. We even have the “Arctic Oven” tent that would comfortably sleep a dozen people.

The "Arctic Oven" will be our control center and lounge while we are in Heald Island.

The landscape includes so many beautiful sights. The first is obviously Mount Discovery, which was named after Scott’s ship, the Discovery, which he used for his first successful trip to Antarctica.

Mount Discovery

There is the continent of Antarctica in the distance. The combination of brown and white mountain tops produces a sight that reminds one of a sand art picture.

The view is almost unreal.

There are glaciers in every direction that you look. You are a bit deceived as to how large they are but I can assure you that they are huge.

Glaciers, glaciers everywhere.

I am also intrigued by the pools of ice that seem to pop up out of the snow. It is really the snow that has blown away to reveal the ice below but the effect is mesmerizing.

You almost think that they are pools of water that you could dip your toe in.

This morning Stacy and I are in charge of drilling some holes in the ice. The first hole was a bit difficult. The ice was harder than any I had drilled before. However, girl power prevailed and we broke through to the water. The next hole was another story.

Stacy and I began drilling and quickly realized that the ice was even thicker. We persisted and had attached four flights when Scott noticed how hard we were struggling. In fact, Stacy lifted her feet and spun around the hole as she hung on to the drill. Stacy also pulled her back out but insisted on continuing to help with the drilling. We attached another flight and then a sixth drill flight. As we approached the ground we suddenly broke through to the water. However, we had no sooner congratulated ourselves than we were stuck in the ice. Stacy thought that the water was so cold that it immediately froze the snow that had fallen in the hole. We twisted and pulled and finagled until we had recovered three flights. Each flight costs about $300 and we didn’t want to lose the money or leave a foreign object in the ice. We decided to go ahead and launch SCINI and then work on freeing the last three flights. Unfortunately, we were only able to free one additional flight. We will try again on another day.

After the launch Stacy and I took a few minutes to check on the flags.

Stacy is checking out the flags.

These are the flags that were made by the students of one of Stacy’s friends. They made a flag for each country that signed the Antarctic Treaty. They are so beautiful that it is almost a shame to hang them up in this wind. However, the students are interested in seeing the effects of the katabatic winds. As you may remember, these are winds that carry high density air from a higher elevation down a slope under the force of gravity. They are sometimes referred to as “fall winds” and have been known to reach hurricane speeds. They carry a prayer for each country and really are amazing.

Each flag carries a prayer for a country that signed the Antarctic Treaty.

After SCINI finished her trip it was time to clean up. Everything has to be put away and secured. The winds picked up this afternoon and made us aware of just why securing everything is essential. However, even when we are working in ice-cold winds we try to have a good time. Francois decided to use himself to help coil and carry the many cables that we use to launch SCINI. He looks quite good in all of his bling.

Francois with his bling.

The helicopter was about 30 minutes early today and we were quite grateful. The pilot decided to show us a huge crack in the sea ice. It would be very interesting to check on it every few days. As the temperatures increase, will the crack open and if so how much?

Stacy looks out of the helicopter at the large crack in the sea ice.

We actually made it back in time to go to the galley and get our own dinner. Afterwards I attended the weekly science lecture. It was about methane- and sulfur-producing microorganisms. It was very interesting. I am enjoying the opportunity to learn about so many different areas of science. McMurdo Station is a smorgasbord of cutting-edge science and I get to take a little taste every day. Lucky me!

I want to leave you with some images that SCINI took today. In an area that Stacy thought would have very little life, there was an extensive variety. Why do you think there is so much life when there is ice that is over 15 feet thick on the surface?

These are just some of the interesting things that we saw today. The first is an Antarctic cod which is a fish that is famous for producing antifreeze glycoprotein that allows it to survive the icy waters around Antarctica. It also is the object of cardiac research because its heart beat once every 6 seconds. Try to determine its size. The red laser points are 12 centimeters apart which should help you determine the size of the head.

Look hard and you will see the Antarctic cod or Antarctic toothfish as it is also known.

Another image that I thought was interesting was the Sea pansy. It is a type of octacoral due to the fact that its arms appear in groups of eight.

Can you count the groups of eight arms on each Sea pansy?

Enjoy.

25 November 2008

Stacy Writing

We made several bets about today’s ROV mission.  First, we bet on how thick the fresh water layer on top of the ocean was – when we did our reconnaissance of Heald Island, we encountered fresh water when we got through the ice, though we are 99% sure we are over the ocean.  Guesses ranged from 2 ft to 50 ft.

This is one of the many incredible views from our field site near Heald Island, where we are going today.

Then we bet about how much life there would be at 189 m depth, this far under permanent ice.  All of the guesses were very low numbers. We are pretty sure that it is fine sediment, because a bit was stuck to the weight we used to measure the depth here.  I imagine a few brittle stars, some scavenging amphipods, and not much else down there.

The arms of the Kottleitz Glacier flow around either side of Heald Island. We are down in a barranca with a crack in the middle to get to thinner ice so we can get through the glacier to the ocean.

But first this morning Cameo and I met up with Robin Ellwood and Peter Doran to do a “Live from IPY” event with PolarTREC and LOTS of students, classes and teachers who called in to hear about our research.  Peter is a researcher in the Dry Valleys, whose project is to put an AUV, an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, in one of the lake systems there.  Robin is the PolarTREC teacher who is working with him.  We compared AUVs and ROVs, and enjoyed answering lots of questions from a lot of people back home.  For those of you whose questions we did not get to answer because we had to run to catch our helo flight, please send them to Cameo on her web site and we’ll answer them.  They were all great!

Cameo after getting up early, talking to students from all over the US, and rushing down the hill to catch a helicopter.

Then we hustled down to catch our ride to Heald Island.  We had 1721 lbs of gear and almost 1600 lbs of people.  From all this we put up a beautiful shelter, a tent called an Arctic Oven, to be a control room for the vehicle and a place of safety if the weather kicks up.  We drilled the holes for SCINI and her navigation system, but encountered a small problem when we tried to drill the last hole in the triangular nav layout.  This hole was off the narrow crack that we had scoped out as the best place to drill, and sure enough, drilling through the glacier even 5 m off the crack resulted in a stuck drill.  Fortunately, the ingenuity and persistence of a rescue team, led by DJ, got us all the drill bits back.  But this meant that we had only 2 navigation holes, which left us with baseline ambiguity in our positions.  This means that we knew where we were in terms of distance and angle from the line between the two nav holes, but we did not know which side of the baseline we were on.  Still it was not too bad.

The smaller A-Star helo on the ice at our field site.

So with much anticipation we put SCINI in the water to seek the bottom 620 ft below.  We were cautious descending, and excited as we approached our depth target to see lots of jelly animals in the water.  Most of them were gorgeous red ctenophores, or comb jellies, trailing two long feathered tentacles through the water after them.  Several times we saw more “traditional” medusae jellies that appeared to be anchored to the seafloor with their long tentacles.  It was glorious but heart wrenching as there was no way to avoid the curtains of tentacles of the delicate animals, and we made several inadvertent “collections” which I preserved for a colleague at MBARI.

This picture of a comb jelly is blurred because we were moving, but you can see the colorful transparency of its jelly body. The metal bars in the picture are part of the cage that protects SCINI's camera

Finally we reached our goal, the seafloor itself.  Expecting a desert, we were amazed at the density of life!  There were indeed brittle stars in fine mud, but also cerianthid sea anemones, sea cucumbers, and sea spiders, and the occasional drop stone from the glacier overhead, covered with crinoids and sponges.  It was quite incredible to see all that richness where we thought there would be none.  And it is a mystery – what are they feeding on???  Is the crack overhead providing enough light for a local food web?  How can we answer this question?

This is a sea spider, or pycnogonid. You can again see SCINI's "crash cage" in the bottom of the picture, and one of her laser dots on the leg of the sea spider on the right.

One of the things we have done is to deploy a CTD and a current meter.  This will tell us where the water is flowing from, and what the temperature and salinity are.  We should have the CTD data downloaded tomorrow and will have a winner on our bet, as well as one more piece of information to help us figure it out why there are so many animals in a place where we thought there was no food supply!

Could it be that this clear ice is letting in enough light to nourish the seafloor 190 m below?

I hope that you get to eat your favorite things today -
Smiles, Stacy

Busy day.

Very stressful preparation in the morning.

Drove to Cape Evans (2 hours in tucker).

Deployed SCINI on other side of iceberg.

Battery died in transponder so lost navigation.

Changed battery, redeployed SCINI.

Got the science done for Stacy.

Walked around the iceberg a couple times, beautiful afternoon, no wind.

Tucker broke down on way back.  DJ and Bob had snowmobiles and were in McMurdo before us so they came to get us with the Pitt Bull.

Took us 4 hours to get back. Missed party for Rob and Bill Stone’s presentation.

Packed for helicopter trip to Heald.

Had dinner around 11:30PM

We’re gone all day tomorrow so I don’t have time to write a detailed post. Enjoy the pictures

The iceberg around which we deployed SCINI.

Sea water came out of a crack and formed a frozen pond.

View on Evans wall, and the dive hut.

Wind-made art in the snow.

Broken down tucker. Waiting for a ride.

“Snowdog” (not a lens effect).

About half an hour from my house back in California there’s Castle Rock State Park, named for a big sandstone formation which is popular with rock climbers. I’ve hiked there a lot and even built and helped to plan trails for the park. It’s a large park in the Santa Cruz mountains, with enormous old redwood and douglas fir trees, strange sandstone formations, ridges with great views, and canyons with great creeks.

Well, today I went for a hike on the Castle Rock loop, but it wasn’t the standard hike. McMurdo has its own trail system, which isn’t too surprising considering that a lot of the people I have met here have a big interest in the outdoors. There are about five general trails here, but a few variations on some of them. One of the most popular is Observation Hill, which most everyone in town has climbed. It’s a very prominent volcanic cone just on the edge of town, and the views from the top are spectacular in good weather. A cross erected on the top commemorates Robert Scott’s South Pole expedition, which achieved the South Pole but died on the return journey.

There’s also a loop around the hill, which got a little attention a week ago with the second annual Trail Daze. I joined the trail crews last Sunday and helped to clear snow from the loop. With the side slope there, the snow made the hike kind of dangerous, but it’s much safer now with the work we put in. Another crew worked on the Hut Point Loop on the other side of town. I have yet to hike that loop, but will do that before I leave.

Hiking here in Antarctica is a little different from other places. Some of the trails, especially the Castle Rock loop, require that you check out with the fire station in town, carry a radio with you, and not travel by yourself. Saturday night I had asked everyone in the group if they wanted to hike the Castle Rock loop and Francois said that he’d like to go. DJ was unsure, since he has a lot of work to do before he leaves, but he was going to try. Others in the group were busy with getting ready for the helicopter flights to Heald Island on Tuesday, or with other stuff. Fortunately DJ was able to make it and two other people that Francois knew joined us for the hike.

The weather was spectacular as we headed out of town. Stacy had sent us off with a huge load of food (which we barely ate) and we checked out with the fire station. The start of the hike wasn’t very interesting as it wound through town, but we soon started climbing out of town. The hill we climbed holds a lot of storage – old vehicles, science experiments and all the food waste from the station. The waste is packed up in a huge pile of triwall containers (really thick cardboard) marked simply “FW”.

Food Waster triwalls in cold storage

Don't want to go here

Even a little further we passed the explosive storage for the station. Surpirsingly, we’re not allowed to walk through that area. We soon made it to the trailhead, which had some unusual (for most of the world) warnings, and started the real hike.

Ah, here's where we want to go. ECW is Extreme Cold Weather gear.

In general, most of the early part of the hike was gaining a ridge that runs roughly northeast on Ross Island. Once we gained the ridge we had views to both sides of the peninsula, looking out onto miles and miles of sea ice. It’s difficult to take pictures here with all the light reflecting off such white surfaces (and also because I’m not an experienced photographer).

Along the route there are three emergency shelters. These are placed in case bad weather or some other problem strikes hikers, skiers, snowmobilers or other travelers. They’ve got emergency gear, some extra food, and a phone. We actually used the phone in one of them to call the lab and see how the packing was going. Two of the shelters are called “apples” because they’re bright red. I’m not sure exactly what they’re made of – probably some fiberglass with a little bit of insulation blown in. Doesn’t really help too much if the wind blows a ton of snow in through various holes, though. Still, the sleeping bag will probably keep you warm enough in an emergency, and the walls will really help cut the wind.

Nice weather means we don't need the emergency shelter

Yes, that's snow on the floor

Castle Rock itself is, well, another castle rock. It seems like most places have something either called Castle Rock, or some rock formation that is just so prominent it needs to have a name. I guess when they jut up so dramatically it makes people think of castles, and thus there are probably over a thousand Castle Rocks throughout the world. Antarctica’s Castle Rock is a gorgeous volcanic rock red against the white snow.

Castle Rock in the distance

Our little party of five climbed part of the way up the rock, but turned back due to the steep, slippery snow. We tried packing the snow into steps, but had no luck. Snow here is kind of weird. Some of it’s so hard you can walk on it without leaving a bootprint. Some of it’s so soft you can’t pack it at all, not even to make a snowball.

An impressive peak

Checking out the view from up there

Stacy had given us some plastic sheets before we headed out, in addition to all the food, and after getting a closer look at Castle Rock we put the plastic to good use. Francois set the speed record on the next part of trail, and if he had been able to keep that pace up probably would have been able to complete the roughly 12 mile loop we hiked in just a few minutes.

We descended down to sea ice level as we approached Scott Base. On the way we passed Snow Mound City, where we had taken Happy Camper training and Willy Field. Willy Field is located on the permanent ice shelf (300 feet thick) where ski-based planes land. It’s also where my roommate’s team will be launching a few enormous balloons carrying science payloads weighing up to six thousand pounds. These balloons will float up to 120,000 feet, and will be large enough to be visible to us down here. They’re huge, roughly the size of football domes.

We walked past Scott Base and decided to take the Cape Armitage trail back to McMurdo. It seemed a nicer alternative than the road and allowed us to get a little closer to the pressure ridges at Scott Base. We ended up taking a little shortcut and visiting the team’s diving shed at Cape Armitage.

Sea ice getting pushed around by the Ross Ice Shelf

Kiwi crossing - the pipe in the background is a fuel line to Willy Field

I was beat as we returned to the lab. Hiking in our bunny boots had kept my feet warm and toasty, but since the boots are so heavy, my legs were very tired. Even on a day off, though, Francois and I had a little work to do and so went up to talk with Joe about some of the difficulties we were having with the GPS. He set us straight pretty quickly. I had tried using the latest data saved by the GPS base station, but it had started sampling the satellite data after I had taken the dive and transducer hole information. Francois and I were sure that we had started the base station well before taking any measurements. Oh no, we wouldn’t have any location information for the dives on Friday or Saturday! Fortunately it was just a quirk of the unit – it starts a new data file at midnight Greenwich Mean Time, which happens to be about 1pm local time, right in the middle of our typical dive schedule. By using the older set of data (from yesterday GMT), we were able to compute the locations of the dive site. Whew, disaster averted!

I finished the day by going to the Sunday night Lecture, where the ENDURANCE team presented their project. We had gone to Happy Camper with several of the team members, and since they also have a robot that explores underwater, we were very interested in hearing what they were up to. Their underwater robot is huge compared to ours. While I can pick up SCINI by myself, ENDURANCE would flatten me. They also have some very sophisticated software on board that helps them navigate autonomously, while we require power and control from the surface. Their website is at

http://www.evl.uic.edu/endurance/details.html

If you want to check them out. Very interesting stuff!

I stopped this morning and realized that I had been in Antarctica for two weeks. It seems like just yesterday that I was flying into New Zealand and starting this amazing adventure. I still have almost four weeks here but I know that the time will fly by. I want to make sure to stop and enjoy every moment. At least once a day, I take a few moments and look out Stacy’s window. It has an incredible view of just what this is all about.

A view to die for.

I am impressed by so many different things. The landscape is breathtaking and the animals are utterly adorable. However, it is the community that is known as McMurdo Station that has really amazed me. There are over 1000 people in the station and yet I feel like I know so many of them already. I am touched by the warm way that I have been accepted into this community. I spoke with someone today that said this place is filled with an assortment of unique people and I certainly agree. I also am impressed with the efforts of everyone to protect this one-of-a-kind environment. You see recycling bins everywhere and what is really astonishing is that everyone goes out of their way to use the bins. I notice that people turn out lights and don’t run the water in the sinks. These may seem like small things but they add up to create a community that cares about its environment and shows it.

There are bins for everything. One bin is labeled "Skua" for items that are used but in decent shape. You can find shoes, books, etc.

I spent the day doing lots of different things. I went to the hut at Cape Armitage and worked with Marco to clean out the remaining items.

Marco is entering the dive hut at Cape Armitage.

A chapter in SCINI’s adventure in Antarctica came to an end. As you know, there are three sites that the team hopes to visit and use SCINI. Cape Armitage was the first of these places and it was the site of a lot of the initial testing. There are some fond memories there that the team will not soon forget.

The dive is almost, but not quite frozen over. It saw a lot of use during the first few weeks of the project.

Our next stop was another hut that the divers used during the first few weeks they were in Antarctica. We picked up some more items. We also had to get an extension cord that was buried under 4 feet of snow and ice. Marco used an ice chipper and worked on it until it was free. He showed that persistence pays. I think that this is a lesson that many of my students should learn. DJ had spent 20 minutes the other day trying to free the extension cord and it would have been so easy for Marco to say “why bother?” Luckily, Marco was willing to work diligently until the job was accomplished. The extension cord thanks him.

Marco is the man!

I spent the rest of the day doing interviews and working on the computer. Next week we will be very busy. Once we start going to Heald Island I won’t have a lot of time to do these types of things. This is the third and final location for SCINI. I understand that the place is gorgeous and that not many people have had the opportunity to visit it. I am constantly reminded just how blessed I am to be here.

In case you were wondering where the second site was, it is Cape Evans. In fact, Stacy, DJ, Scott, and Justin (a volunteer) packed up and went there today. The Pisten Bully has a hydraulic leak and is being fixed, so they used the vehicle from last year. It is called a “Tucker” and it is big and slow, but it has a table and curtains. As they say, “Beggars can’t be choosers.” It is a funny looking vehicle but I understand the ride is a lot smoother.

The infamous "Tucker". Last year the team used this vehicle to go everywhere.

The goal for SCINI at Cape Evans is to view and record the effects of the passage of icebergs along the seafloor. These are areas that have been devastated by the activities of an iceberg.

In addition, Marco and DJ leave next Wednesday which means that we will be down to 5 people. That means everyone will have to cover the slack. I thought I worked a lot already but I have a feeling that I am about to get really busy. I can’t wait!

21 November 2008

Stacy writing

Today we had an Expedition with a capital E.  All seven of us, plus volunteer Joe, headed out for a science assault on one of the icebergs at Cape Evans.  We were such a large group that we took 3 snowmobiles as well as our Pisten Bully and trailer.  We also needed the snowmobiles so that in case DJ’s extension of his time here was not granted, he could get back and pack to leave tomorrow.

SCINI, the Pisten Bully and trailer set up, and the Iceberg we are about to explore!

When we arrived at the icebergs we cautiously drove to the area we thought it most likely that the iceberg had come from – from the Ross Sea.  Our goal is to look at the area of the seafloor that was disturbed by the passage of the iceberg.  As the ‘bergs are driven by wind and currents into shallow water, they plough across the bottom of the sea, tearing up sponges, ripping out anemones, sending sea stars flying, and gouging into the gravel and rocks beneath.  Okay, so it doesn’t happen really quickly, it can take weeks to months or even years for icebergs to move across the seafloor, but to a sponge that may be living for thousands of years, that’s still pretty fast.

Reconnaissance at the iceberg. It looks so calm on the surface, but we are about to see what has happened below the surface.

The top of the iceberg has been melting and forming long daggers of icicles.

Our teamwork was amazing as people saw what needed to be done and pitched in.  We are all familiar enough with the deployment operation now that the whole operation moves very smoothly and with almost no supervision.  Cameo and I drilled the holes.  DJ set up the computers and control room.  Bob set up the tether system and vehicle.  Joe did a little (or a lot) of everything, wherever an extra pair of hands were needed, which was everywhere.  Marco, Francois and Scott dealt with the new navigation challenges of this location.  Theirs was the tough part – the GPS cannot “see” the base station at McMurdo from this location, so in order to know where we are, we need to establish our frame of reference.  This is done by setting the GPS receiver in one place and letting it collect data for half an hour or so.  The longer term average of the location is more accurate than a quick measurement.  In the mean time, to get us started quickly, they measured the distances between our holes with a tape measure.  Then there was some simple trigonometry, well, it should have been simple, but because everyone was cold, and writing in small notebooks, it took a while.  Eventually though, by two separate methodologies, they came up with two sets of numbers that agreed to within 1 mm.  As the dive went on using the local frame of reference, Scott went out and accurately surveyed the locations of each hole, which we can later combine with the longer term data to shift to the real world frame of reference.  He had one small delay when he went to wipe a snotcicle off his nose and allowed the antennae to dip and lose contact with the satellites.  He had to start the 8 minute process over.

Scott with the GPS, starting over after some personal grooming.

Our full team working harmoniously to get SCINI in the water.

Meanwhile, in the control room, a wonderful perspective of the seafloor was developing.  We know that this ‘berg came in last year, as it was not here last season.  And the drag marks across the seafloor were churned up gravel with not a bit of life remaining on it.  There has not been enough time for animals to move into the newly opened areas.  Away from the trail of the iceberg there were sponges galore, seastars, tunicates, bryozoans, a full rich community like the one we saw at Cape Armitage at the same depth.  The contrast was quite amazing.  The berm pushed up at the edge of the iceberg trough was a high jumble of rocks, overturned sponges, and gravel piles.  I had thought that there would be one stright path where the iceberg had come in and gotten stuck but it looks instead like it bounced around for quite a while here before getting stuck in the forming annual ice.  The areas of destruction are mixed and churned, an interaction between the bathymetry of the seafloor and the underwater shape of the ‘berg.

The diverse community in an area where the iceberg has not been.

The bare gravel seafloor in an area where the iceberg has been.

We did not quite get to the direct contact area between the iceberg and seafloor.  It was very overhung and that caused us to lose navigation as the signals bounced around between ice and tranducer.  We remembered the overhangs and holes on the iceberg above water we were leery of driving where we did not know where we were going -  the worst thing would be to get stuck and not know how to retrace your path out.  But the textures in the surface of the ice were beautiful.

Some areas under the iceberg are very overhung.

And some have holes and caves wherer the ROV might get stuck if we are not careful.

After the welter of tumbled and confused seafloor and frantic collection of as much data as possible for several very intense hours it was a deep relief to finally crawl out of the dark Pisten Bully into the bright Antarctic sunshine and stretch a bit while recovering the vehicle.  A long and successful day working towards our second science goal left us tired but very happy with our progress.

Scientist, navigator, pilot crammed into our dark cave.

Emerging into the evening sun can be painful.

One more beautiful picture of the carved and curved underwater iceberg surface.

I hope that your steps today were forward!
Smiles, Stacy

First of all, I apologize for posting this two days late. We have been really busy and only now do I get a chance to write about thursday. Thursday was a really exciting day as we flew SCINI with a clump weight for the first time. We left the lab as soon as we could and drove to the deep Cap Armitage site.

Bob, Scott and DJ loading all the gear necessary for deploying SCINI.

First, we had redrill the holes because they had frozen over during the night. I think drilling holes in the ice is Bob’s favorite part of the entire mission, you should see him handling the drill, it’s a very funny sight. During the entire process, he yells instructions, advices, orders or jokes to his helper, in that case, Scott.

Once this was done, we hooked up the SCINI system: baseline stations in the holes, generator, 3 laptop computers and large monitor, tether spool, clump weight and float and finally SCINI itself. We also measured the exact coordinates of the three navigation holes.

We operate SCINI out of the Pit Bull which is quite comfortable, 4 people (engineer, pilot, navigator and scientist) fit in the blacked out cabin.

Bob deploying SCINI through the 10 inch hole.

Bob is handling the tether (yellow line) while the scientist, the pilot, the navigator and the engineer are inside the Pit Bull controlling SCINI (notice the blacked out windows). The black lines on the snow are the cables of the sonar system, going out to the the baseline stations. The grey box on the left is the tether spool.

We lowered the clump weight to about 600ft (see Stacy’s post for explanation about the clump weight). First, DJ tried to fly SCINI down, but it soon became obvious that letting the clump weight drag SCINI down was easier. SCINI soon reached the seafloor, and there it was flying at up to 705 ft: the southernmost, deepest Antarctic ROV dive ever! The clump really made a huge difference, DJ was able to fly SCINI for several hours, without major problems.

Scott and I had to leave early to go to a GPS training in the afternoon. This training, which I expected to last about an hour ended up taking the entire afternoon! Joe, a GPS specialist taught us how to use equipment which can measure coordinates very accurately. If the conditions are right and the equipment is used properly, this equipment can measure a position with a millimeter accuracy! We use it to know the position of the baseline station, which in turn are used to measure SCINI’s position underwater.

Scott and our GPS instructor Joe.

Apologies in order – in my rush to write my blog entries over the past two weeks I neglected to introduce myself. Hello! I’m Scott Heeschen, one of the programmers on this project. Of course, there are several other duties that I help out with, but my primary focus is to make sure that the computer systems that we use to fly SCINI are working and provide the features that the pilot and other folks need in order to have good, successful dives. I’ve been working on the computer programs since early summer, but only arrived recently on the ice. Fortunately Jim, the other programmer on the project, was able to take the “early shift” down here and help get SCINI diving in the first several weeks.

There are two main computer programs that run SCINI – one runs on a normal PC and we call it SCINI-pilot. It’s based on a program that a company called VideoRay has created for use with their Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), but we’ve modified it to work with SCINI. This is the program that we run in the dive hut or the Pisten Bully when we are flying SCINI., and it’s what the pilot of SCINI talks to through a joystick and computer mouse. When the pilot moves the right joystick control forward, the program interprets that to mean “Move SCINI forward”. Moving another joystick control means “Turn SCINI left”. Pushing certain buttons on the joystick controller will turn the lasers on or off, brighten or dim the forward lights, or tilt the camera to either look forward (for driving around ) or down (so Stacy can do her science). In some ways, flying SCINI feels like playing a video game.

A screen shot of SCINI-pilot

Computer programming really just involves moving information around. Sometimes you modify the information, but a lot of the time you just move it from one place to the other. Once SCINI-pilot has gathered all the information from the joystick and mouse, it sends a digested version of that information down to SCINI over the tether – essentially a 1000-foot length of wire. The tether supplies power to SCINI, but anywhere you send electricity, you can also send information, so that’s what we do. Our information gets “added” to the electricity that runs SCINI. The process is a little more complicated than simply adding, but in essence, that’s what happens. We plug the computer cables into little Ethernet Over Power boxes that plug into the power strips that send electricity to SCINI

The letter 'a' in serial language, which gets added to the electrical signal

A brand-new tether connector that Bob built last night - here it is about to be removed from the mold. A lot of our equipment is custom-built, often by Bob or Francois.

Once SCINI gets the information, the other main program that runs SCINI reads that information and does what it is told to do. This program is in three microcontroller boards inside SCINI. A microcontroller is basically a very small computer that, well, controls things, and in our case, the computers control three primary tasks for SCINI. One is to control the thrusters that determine which direction SCINI will fly in. Another task is to determine what direction SCINI is pointed in, and the third task is to control the lights and camera in the front of SCINI. These microcontrollers all send information back on the tether and let SCINI-pilot know what to display. This information can let the pilot know that SCINI is pointed down, or that SCINI is 500 feet deep, very useful information if you are trying to get somewhere deep in the sea.

The imu board on bottom, with with thruster controller board behind it. The four boards on the top are the motor circuitry that thruster control runs.

An interesting thing about SCINI is that its thrusters are based on radio-control circuits and parts. The microcontrollers are creating the same kinds of signals that are used by radio-control planes and cars. I think it’s pretty cool that the computer programs I’ve written can make things happen in the real world and enable us to visit places nobody has ever seen under the sea.

Anyways, I hope you found that information interesting. I spent most of the day in the lab working on the programming for the microcontrollers today, so that seemed a natural thing to write about. I also figured that some people out there might be curious about how SCINI works in certain ways.

Other things happened today, too, as our team had a long day starting at 1am. Stacy was interviewed on the Today Show. Due to the time zone differences, she needed to be there super early (or you may call it super late from the previous day). Cameo already wrote about Stacy’s interview, so I won’t say anything more than we were proud to have our work and Principal Investigator on such a popular show!

The busy day in the lab was getting ready for some SCINI dives. A few events are coming up very soon that we needed to prepare for – DJ and Marco will be leaving soon. Both of them have extended their stay and are contributing so much that there is a large amount of work we need to take over from them if we hope to continue our progress.

I’m taking over some of the GPS and navigation responsibilities from Marco, so he started instructing me in its use. Marco also taught Francois and me how to use the fancy-dancy GPS system the station has issued us. I was taught more than I could learn in those few hours, but hopefully with another training tomorrow I’ll feel more comfortable with the system. Using the GPS system is important in two ways. Marco’s system is essentially an underwater GPS system, but for it to work, we need to have very accurate geometry of the holes where we put in his equipment. By using GPS to determine this geometry, we’ll be able to fly SCINI in the direction we want to instead of going in random directions. We also want to document very accurately what we find so we can revisit particular sites in the future to see how the seafloor communities change, or to know that we’ve seen every square foot of the seafloor in a certain area to determine the population density of certain animals, for example.

Here I am holding the GPS antenna during Marcos class - it's about 10pm - bright sunlight, as usual

Also in preparation for our trip to Heald Island, part of the crew learned how to set up our Arctic Oven – a huge tent that we’ll use for running SCINI in the very remote site. The tent comes in two bags, each of which are large enough to put a person in. The crew at the Berg Field Center (BFC) which issues all kinds of gear taught Stacy, Cameo and Francois how to set it up.

Cameo and Francois holding the two bags of Arctic Oven gear - not your typical backpacking tent!

The Arctic Oven all set up in the Berg Field Center - Francois for scale

Patrick, who works in the galley, has volunteered to help us with some tasks.  Here he is with a cradle he has built that will hold SCINI.  A lot of people in the community here have helped us in different ways.

Patrick and the cradle

Today is a day to get some little things accomplished. It is often the little things that can make the difference. Everyone on the team has things that they need to accomplish if the overall project is going to be a success.

I have a lot of work to do on the computer. I need to work on the video picture frame. It is a device that looks just like a picture frame and flashes pictures and videos that you download into it. We want to remove some pictures and download some new ones. It doesn’t sound like a hard job but it definitely takes some time. There are a lot of pictures and video clips to sort through.

The video picture frame with a photo of starfish.

Other members of the team have jobs that are important to the project. Some are working on the navigation, some on the operating software, and some are trying to test the new 1000 foot tether.

However, the big excitement today is that Stacy is going to be on the Today show. She is scheduled to be on the show on Tuesday, November 18^th at 8:11am EDT. In case you were wondering, that’s 2:11am on Wednesday, November 19^th for us.

That means that I can stop work a little early. As a reward, I am going to do my laundry. Yippee! Now that might not sound exciting but when you have been wearing the same clothes for 12 days, the idea of clean clothes is pretty darn exciting.

Well, the plan was to get up at 1:30am to watch Stacy on the Today show. It should not come as a surprise that I overslept. I woke up at 2:00am and realized that I had ten minutes to get dressed and get over to the Chalet (the headquarters for the National Science Foundation). Luckily I am a very fast dresser and I made it to the Chalet with a minute to spare. I was so glad that I decided to get up. It was really exciting to see Stacy on live national television. The set-up was beautiful with the scenery in the background.

Stacy getting ready to be a television star.

Stacy looked like a real professional and she looked great in her “Big Red” (the arctic coat that we were given by the CDC).

The actual filming of Stacy's segment on the Today show.

I was able to watch Stacy filming and see the actual telecast on a television. There was a slight (4 seconds) delay. Doesn’t she look great?

A star is born in Antarctica.

The other star of the television show was SCINI. She looked fabulous!

SCINI steals the show.

If you would like to watch the segment in its entirety, then go to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27783395#27783395.

After all of this excitement, there is only one thing to do. I’m going back to bed and get some lovely sleep.

17 November 2008
Stacy Writing

I felt it was necessary to include this picture for balance from my last post – this is DJ and Marco in their usual attitude during a science dive.

Having done our helicopter reconnaissance of Heald Island, we know what we are up against for our exploration under the permanent Ross Ice Shelf.  The water depth is 189 m, or 623 ft.  The thinnest part of the ice in the middle of the crack is 110 cm (4 ft) thick.  There is a layer of fresh water overlying the seawater, and it is under positive pressure from the weight of the ice shelf and glaciers, so we have to be cautious we do not flood our working area.  We can get VHF radio communications with McMurdo by walking just a short distance up onto the wall of the barranca, and Iridium comms even from the floor.

Bob establishing communications to McMurdo from Heald Island.

So this morning we made a list of what we need to achieve to move from our operations at Cape Armitage, where we were diving in 110 m (363 ft) of water, to the Heald Island site.  The vehicle has a pressure capability of 303 m  (1000 ft) but the tether length we have been working with is 150 m (500 ft).  Even at that length, the tether influences the steering of the vehicle quite a bit, especially when the currents are high – in fact, at the full moon, when tidal currents were maximum, we found that we could not operate during peak flow.  So we will be shifting to not only a longer tether, but also one that has a clump weight.  This is a heavy weight that pulls the tether straight down from the surface, and then has a shorter free tether length that gives you a working radius without having to drag around all the tether from the surface.  Which is all a long way of saying that we spent the morning getting the new system set up.  We will test one component at a time, starting with the longer tether.

A schematic of how a clump weight works. Instead of the Thompson, we have the sea ice, instead of Medea we have a “dumb weight” with no electronics, and instead of Jason we have SCINI!

In the late afternoon we set out to test a 240 m (800 ft) tether.  We were also conducting our first mission out of our mobile command center – the darkened back of the Pisten Bully.  Of course the whole thing starts with drilling the holes, during which I lost another bet with DJ on how thick the ice and snow was.  If you remember, at our Cape Armitage site the ice was 7-10 m (23-32 ft) thick, which caused great problems for drilling.  But at our new site, which is further offshore to reach the deeper depths, the ice was only 3 m (10 ft) thick!  This made for much easier drilling, and once we had the main hole drilled, DJ and Marco started setting up the command center while Cameo and I drilled the last navigation hole.

Drilling holes – again. We are very happy to have 3 m of ice to go through instead of 7!

Then we ran into some “issues.”  The tether mating system for the long tether was not set up correctly, so it took some creative knot work to make it safe.  But worse, we could not get communication between the vehicle, the navigation system and the surface to all work at the same time.  After some time trouble shooting, we triaged and decided to dive the vehicle without navigation, as our primary purpose was to test vehicle depth capability, for which we did not require navigation.

SCINI going in for the depth record.

Finally SCINI flew into the depths.  Cameo and I were outside managing the tether, and DJ and Marco were in their little dark box.  It was very exciting when we heard DJ yell “New Depth Record” as we passed our previous depth record of 114 m (375 ft) and then there was only a short time of quiet before we heard “Get in here, we’re on bottom!”  Unfortunately by the time the “outside team” had tied off the tether safely we had lost bottom contact, so Cameo and I did not get to see it directly, but that’s the good thing about an ROV, we got to review the imagery later!  There were large rosselid sponges and seastars, though not in as high density as in shallower.  We reached a maximum depth of 206 m (680 ft) and I am looking forward to seeing more at that depth range!

These twists in the tether are called hockles, and can cause real problems when pulled tight as they kink the tether and can damage communications. DJ wanted to be sure that his co-workers know that he told us there would be a hockling problem, but that I made him dive anyway. I knew he was right, so I did not lose yet another bet, but the purpose of the dive was simply to test the depth capabilities, and we never pulled too tight on the tether.

Our new depth record was very illuminating.  It proved that we cannot work at those depths without a clump weight, but that the system is functional.  We have some further trouble shooting to do to figure out why we could not get both navigation and vehicle control running at the same time over the longer tether.  Most important, we all came back safe AND it was before midnight!

A sundog is a rainbow that forms on either side of the sun, an effect of ice crystals in the atmosphere.

I hope you get to bed early tonight!
Smiles, Stacy

PS. We will be on the Today Show for about 5 minutes ay 8:11 am tomorrow morning!