Report From Parker Levinson, Field Team Leader and MSU Masters Student:
We finally made it to the Ice!! It’s been a bit of a whirlwind getting down here. We were delayed in Christchurch, New Zealand for about a week due to weather (both in Antarctica and in New Zealand) and plane logistics.
We thought we were going to fly Saturday, we even managed to board the C17 and fasten our seatbelts but had to disembark after the winds in NZ got too strong to take off. All our bags were already checked and on the plane, but we got our "boomerang" bag back as we disembarked. This is a bag that contains all your essentials and some extra clothes and is returned to you in case your flight does not land in McMurdo, i.e., boomerangs back to New Zealand.
But we’re here now! We arrived on a gorgeous blue bird day. There was absolutely no wind, the sky was crystal clear, and you could even make out the smoke coming out of Mount Erebus - the southernmost active volcano on Earth - in the distance. On the drive into station, we spotted some seals out on the sea ice.
I think it can sometimes be hard to visualize what it’s like to work down here. I took the first photo on the road that runs by our laboratory as the sun was “setting”. Crary is the building on the left which is where we have our lab, and you can make out Mount Discovery on the horizon line.
This second photo was taken from the same spot less than 24 hours later, and while you can still make out buildings in the second image, you can see how much the landscape changes and how quickly it can change.
We’ve spent the last few days getting situated and preparing to head into the field. We’ve done a variety of trainings from GPS use to sea ice safety, and now we’re in the final stages of getting all our gear ready to head into the field. We’re hoping to get into the field in a few days, and see what the seals are up to this season!
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