Transmissions from the Ice Sheet

As I sit at the window of my hotel room in Ilulisat, watching icebergs the size of city blocks drift across the shimmering path of the setting sun, it’s hard to believe I woke up in the middle of the ice sheet two days ago. With my feet on solid ground, far enough south for [...]

I just returned from my second night logging shift, where we cleaned and documented the 3.5 m piece of ice that pushed our drilling depth past 1700 meters (more than 1 mile) below the surface. This is an amazing feat, since just last week the drillers were celebrating the considerable success of reaching 1600 m [...]

For the first time since we arrived, there is a steady bank of clouds advancing from the southeast. The low fog creates the intriguing illusion of topography on the horizon, as if we were out at sea but approaching land or on the salty plains of a wide basin and range playa. It is still [...]

We had a lovely weekend here at NEEM. The concept of the weekend is a bit abbreviated—Saturday at 4 pm until Sunday at 1 pm—but what it lacks in duration is made up for in enthusiasm! The first few hours of leisure involved card games, running or skiing on the groomed runway, and general lounging [...]

After a hectic day of preparation on Wednesday, we called it an early night to prepare for our 4:45 am wakeup the following day. The one easy thing about rising early here is that it’s always light, no matter what time you have to get up. We met the Air Force crew at the airfield [...]

…it was apparent that these fringes of earth had been overridden time and again by the advancing ice, slowly grinding it down to its scoured and subdued modern topography…

Date: Feb 1, 2009
Location: Devon Hotel in Christchurch, NZ
Time: 11:30am
Latitude: 43°31′43.04″S
Longitude: 172°37′58.15″E
Elevation: 75 m (246’)
Temperature: 25°C
Wind speed:  4 km/hour
Clouds: Partly cloudy
Relative Humidity: 44%
Precipitation: None so far
Animals: Lots of birds
I made it back to New Zealand!  The flight was on a much larger C-17 this time.  The C-17 is different from the LC-130 in that the [...]