I learned a little bit about what Jackie and Jen know. I learned more about myself. I learned that I still have a lot to learn. I learned how to delegate better, channel myself into positive efforts, and most importantly how to let go of situations beyond my control.
We are very lucky. The weather was very accommodating, the location was spectacular, and we have so many people to thank for all their effort and support. I learned on this trip that it takes roughly 100 people to put one person like me on a remote site like this and keep the basics functioning.
Most of all, I've learned to listen to the strength of others, ask important questions, keep my hands busy, my attitude positive, and my mind at peace. With these fundamental elements, I feel in balance with my life and the existence of others around me.
25 April 2007
April 13 – Last full day at Camp
Today is the last full day at camp. The morning was spent packing up all the big equipment, loading it into cargo containers, and getting it out to the runway. It was the usual bustle of trying to find all those little things you had brought with you. Each item had met its maximum entropy and was scattered somewhere within the camp. The only loss of equipment I suffered was my little red shovel which I was quite fond of, but I am sure that it was one of those early snow mobile rides that caused its demise and so I have accepted it as a sacrifice to the Arctic terrain – not a bad way for a Norwegian field shovel to spend it remaining days.
Following the packing, Robert and I also took some time to go around to each building and mark the north corners of each with a GPS position and record the size and relative location of each to get a lay of the camp. We also took a series of stereo photographs around the perimeter as a means of reconstructing the camp layout. We hope to use these and maybe an aerial shot to make a 3D fly-through of the camp at Chandra’s lab. We had a quiet lunch with only a third of the scientists left.
After lunch we walked down the end of Line #6 one last time to check out the developing ridges, especially ridge number 6.1. The snow mobile tracks were so set at this point that they have become stable trails for one to walk comfortably along without worrying about burying one’s leg up to one’s knee in soft drift. We could feel that it was our last day especially after the gear was packed. We only had cameras at this point so we did some stereo photography of 6.0B, JR1, and 6.1. Then Robert and I took a relaxing walk back. It was actually so warm and sunny we had our coats completely open and were still sweating like crazy. We stopped by the ice mass balance buoy and Andrew’s meteorological station and took stereo photos of them as well. At 3pm we felt the need to return to get some water because we were soaking with sweat.
We returned, drank tons of water, and started to download the data when Jen came in and asked if someone would like to take a walk to go see the Pablo ridge one last time. The last time I walked that way was a week ago so I did want to see it one last time. I dressed lightly as it was still hot (30F) and went with Katharine and Jen. At about 400m along Line #4, Jackie and Bruce were standing there watching a ridge form. We all watched for about 20 minutes while the ridge flooded, creaked, groaned, slide, heaved, you name it. I had a camera with me so I tried to get as much video as I could. Then we walked the rest of the way to the end of Line #4. The 2 liters of water I drank after the early afternoon walk had caught up with me so I actually had to (for the first time) find a ridge to relieve myself. It was an interesting experience trying to find a suitable place. Sort of like being on an unstable rocky sea shore and needing to go. But, I suppose it was bound to happen. Besides this is one of those questions that everyone seems to ask, so ... yes, you do have to improvise when out in the middle of nowhere and make do with whatever is available at the time.
It was a good walk and a good chance to spend time with the core folks on the team to walk one last time together and watch the ice deform and marvel at the incredible structures. We were like little kids all over again, watching the way the ice behaved, it was just wonderful.
Dinner was great and we ended off with a toast to the success of the field work. Tomorrow morning I need to wake up, eat breakfast, pack, and get on a plane possibly by 9:30 am. I have to go over shipping issues with Bruce to be sure the hazmat stuff stays separate from the other shipping. Once that is all taken care of, we have to head over to the Prudhoe airport and find out about standby on the return flight to Fairbanks. Once in Fairbanks, we still have about 3-4 days of wrap up and continued packing but it works out well that way. In this setup, I should have 3 days of high speed internet at ARCUS and IARC to sort out e-mail and the next round of science planning before I head back to my family. I will spend the rest of the week at home to help out there and then it will be back to work on Monday in full swing to my usual job.
I think I will need those 4 special days with my family to get reconnected with them and to shift gears back from this vast open wilderness. The project was great, but it is also very nice to get back home again.
Following the packing, Robert and I also took some time to go around to each building and mark the north corners of each with a GPS position and record the size and relative location of each to get a lay of the camp. We also took a series of stereo photographs around the perimeter as a means of reconstructing the camp layout. We hope to use these and maybe an aerial shot to make a 3D fly-through of the camp at Chandra’s lab. We had a quiet lunch with only a third of the scientists left.
After lunch we walked down the end of Line #6 one last time to check out the developing ridges, especially ridge number 6.1. The snow mobile tracks were so set at this point that they have become stable trails for one to walk comfortably along without worrying about burying one’s leg up to one’s knee in soft drift. We could feel that it was our last day especially after the gear was packed. We only had cameras at this point so we did some stereo photography of 6.0B, JR1, and 6.1. Then Robert and I took a relaxing walk back. It was actually so warm and sunny we had our coats completely open and were still sweating like crazy. We stopped by the ice mass balance buoy and Andrew’s meteorological station and took stereo photos of them as well. At 3pm we felt the need to return to get some water because we were soaking with sweat.
We returned, drank tons of water, and started to download the data when Jen came in and asked if someone would like to take a walk to go see the Pablo ridge one last time. The last time I walked that way was a week ago so I did want to see it one last time. I dressed lightly as it was still hot (30F) and went with Katharine and Jen. At about 400m along Line #4, Jackie and Bruce were standing there watching a ridge form. We all watched for about 20 minutes while the ridge flooded, creaked, groaned, slide, heaved, you name it. I had a camera with me so I tried to get as much video as I could. Then we walked the rest of the way to the end of Line #4. The 2 liters of water I drank after the early afternoon walk had caught up with me so I actually had to (for the first time) find a ridge to relieve myself. It was an interesting experience trying to find a suitable place. Sort of like being on an unstable rocky sea shore and needing to go. But, I suppose it was bound to happen. Besides this is one of those questions that everyone seems to ask, so ... yes, you do have to improvise when out in the middle of nowhere and make do with whatever is available at the time.
It was a good walk and a good chance to spend time with the core folks on the team to walk one last time together and watch the ice deform and marvel at the incredible structures. We were like little kids all over again, watching the way the ice behaved, it was just wonderful.
Dinner was great and we ended off with a toast to the success of the field work. Tomorrow morning I need to wake up, eat breakfast, pack, and get on a plane possibly by 9:30 am. I have to go over shipping issues with Bruce to be sure the hazmat stuff stays separate from the other shipping. Once that is all taken care of, we have to head over to the Prudhoe airport and find out about standby on the return flight to Fairbanks. Once in Fairbanks, we still have about 3-4 days of wrap up and continued packing but it works out well that way. In this setup, I should have 3 days of high speed internet at ARCUS and IARC to sort out e-mail and the next round of science planning before I head back to my family. I will spend the rest of the week at home to help out there and then it will be back to work on Monday in full swing to my usual job.
I think I will need those 4 special days with my family to get reconnected with them and to shift gears back from this vast open wilderness. The project was great, but it is also very nice to get back home again.
April 12 – Last Full Science Day
Tomorrow we start shipping gear back so this is the last day of full blown science. It started out very nice with Robert and I preparing for the “live from IPY” webinar arranged by the incredible folks at ARCUS. They sent us two pages of PDF using the figures Robert had been transmitting. They had selected a series of these and put them into a powerpoint presentation that they would beam out to the classrooms around the world that wished to participate. We went carefully through them spending a solid hour prepping for the event. We had no idea how many people would be listening so we had to get our minds set for an unspecified number of participants and student questions. At 09:25 we phoned in to get set up for the event.
For the next hour we were there, hooked in with folks from all over who wanted to know how things were going at our ice camp. It was so weird because we have been in isolation for almost two weeks so being plugged into this conference call for one hour in the middle of nowhere was strange and cool at the same time. I felt like one of those folks in the animated section of Disney’s Epscot Center where they have the mom located at 500m below sea level in an aqua habitat hut calling her family and chatting with them from her computer and seeing their faces. This is as close to that futuristic display as I could imagine. My incredibly dedicated husband was one of the participants and that just made the whole event special. I got the typical sets of questions about what is happening up on the ice and what sources are causing the changes, and how is life on the camp, etc. But from here, with all the events still around me, it was so tangible to relate my experience to the outside world. Since we have had media with us nearly the whole time, and time with my students, I was getting used to the idea of relaying complex science issues into everyday lingo and I find that I am starting to get the hang of it. It takes quite some thinking to boil down some of the more complicated issues to the fundamentals that everyone can understand. But, when I do that, I find that I am able to grasp those topics for myself. It was great to get a question from someone in Luxemburg and we are waiting for the e-mail from ARCUS to find out how many actually participated. Several of the PolarTREC teachers participated. The support of the other PolarTREC teachers was definitely felt so one could see already the huge impact the 4-day training through ARCUS was having on all the PolarTREC teachers.
Robert was a little frustrated that no one from his school district hooked up so we are sensing some form of communication break down there. It just means that we will have to make those post-field presentations that much more exciting to ensure that another such event can get more local coverage. But I know from previous experiences like this that there are only a few souls in the world who can extract themselves from the everyday grind (especially grown ups) to engage in that sense of wonder to carve out time to listen to an adventure. It is probably for this one big reason that I find this trip so enjoyable, because I am able to be with others like myself who have been at the edges of this world and can relate to the wonder of watching a ridge grow (like yesterday’s incredible event) or marvel at how a lead formed over night followed by a big ridge only 200m from the helicopter. We all have a sense of understanding about where we are so no one is worried but by the same token, we can see that our research area and the time of our stay are both slowly heading in the same direction - departure into the spring break up (camp and ice). After lunch, I had an opportunity to finally get my first half day to work directly with Jen the chief scientist as colleagues and it went well. We finished up the drill holes in the ridge.
There was a good deal of ridge activity between yesterday and today, but the light was very flat and therefore quite difficult for taking pictures. If we can get one more good day for photography, Robert and I will try to revisit the stereo sites to retake those shots with the changes in the ridge development. That would be a bonus for Scott to work on.
Tomorrow we move into packing mode and the final wrap up of all data. Time to download the last of the pictures and get stuff ready for close out.
For the next hour we were there, hooked in with folks from all over who wanted to know how things were going at our ice camp. It was so weird because we have been in isolation for almost two weeks so being plugged into this conference call for one hour in the middle of nowhere was strange and cool at the same time. I felt like one of those folks in the animated section of Disney’s Epscot Center where they have the mom located at 500m below sea level in an aqua habitat hut calling her family and chatting with them from her computer and seeing their faces. This is as close to that futuristic display as I could imagine. My incredibly dedicated husband was one of the participants and that just made the whole event special. I got the typical sets of questions about what is happening up on the ice and what sources are causing the changes, and how is life on the camp, etc. But from here, with all the events still around me, it was so tangible to relate my experience to the outside world. Since we have had media with us nearly the whole time, and time with my students, I was getting used to the idea of relaying complex science issues into everyday lingo and I find that I am starting to get the hang of it. It takes quite some thinking to boil down some of the more complicated issues to the fundamentals that everyone can understand. But, when I do that, I find that I am able to grasp those topics for myself. It was great to get a question from someone in Luxemburg and we are waiting for the e-mail from ARCUS to find out how many actually participated. Several of the PolarTREC teachers participated. The support of the other PolarTREC teachers was definitely felt so one could see already the huge impact the 4-day training through ARCUS was having on all the PolarTREC teachers.
Robert was a little frustrated that no one from his school district hooked up so we are sensing some form of communication break down there. It just means that we will have to make those post-field presentations that much more exciting to ensure that another such event can get more local coverage. But I know from previous experiences like this that there are only a few souls in the world who can extract themselves from the everyday grind (especially grown ups) to engage in that sense of wonder to carve out time to listen to an adventure. It is probably for this one big reason that I find this trip so enjoyable, because I am able to be with others like myself who have been at the edges of this world and can relate to the wonder of watching a ridge grow (like yesterday’s incredible event) or marvel at how a lead formed over night followed by a big ridge only 200m from the helicopter. We all have a sense of understanding about where we are so no one is worried but by the same token, we can see that our research area and the time of our stay are both slowly heading in the same direction - departure into the spring break up (camp and ice). After lunch, I had an opportunity to finally get my first half day to work directly with Jen the chief scientist as colleagues and it went well. We finished up the drill holes in the ridge.
There was a good deal of ridge activity between yesterday and today, but the light was very flat and therefore quite difficult for taking pictures. If we can get one more good day for photography, Robert and I will try to revisit the stereo sites to retake those shots with the changes in the ridge development. That would be a bonus for Scott to work on.
Tomorrow we move into packing mode and the final wrap up of all data. Time to download the last of the pictures and get stuff ready for close out.
April 11 – Stereo Photography
It was a quiet mild morning with some light ice fog in the air. After breakfast, I headed out with Robert to get the stereo survey done between Lines #4 and #1 in a clockwise direction (essentially hitting the same highlights Jackie had shown on her tour the day before). It was a quiet calm and enjoyable trip. Robert has been an absolute trooper and a really good grounding for my personality. He says the same for me so we are really glad to be buddies on this trip. I think it really helps to know that we have such wonderful spouses tending the home front. I would definitely say that Robert and I have become good colleagues and friends as a result of all the trials and tribulations of this camp.
We worked through lunch to get the stereo imaging of Jen’s ridge. We got in 36 points (see trip report). When we were half way through the Discovery guys did a spot on me explaining how ridges, leads, cracks, dynamics, and thermodynamics work. It was an interesting experience and since I had just finished a good hard morning of work with lots of success, I was feeling very calm and satisfied so the take felt like it went well. My patience was high so I managed to last, missing yet another meal, so these guys could retake and retake me doing the same thing again and again and again.
I got settled in for an afternoon of radio work at the command and control hut to write up all my stuff and spent the last hours of the afternoon catching up on paperwork. We set up the T-shirt sales and they went like hotcakes.
Just after 17:00, Jackie called on the radio to tell Jen that there was a new ridge forming. I tagged along with Andrew and experienced my first ridge building. I drove out with Andrew on the snow machine just in time to see it grinding and crunching away. It was just great. It sounds like a combination of Styrofoam and fingernails on a blackboard. The momentum was the most impressive. It wasn’t moving very fast, but there was this large flat plate that was moving with absolute confidence, like the vessel the Queen Mary heading slowly into port but determined to take out a pier. The speed was slow but the power and the feeling that there is no way to stop this thing was something one was definitely aware of.
Upon returning, I repaired Jen’s serial port with a careful soldering job of the battery connector so she could download the data from her 3 buoys that were recovered from the helicopter yesterday. It meant missing yet another meal, but the recovery of those data from the units that for a while I believed were lost, was worth it.
Tomorrow I’d like to check out the change of events between Lines #1 to Line #4 by way of Lines #2 and #3.
We worked through lunch to get the stereo imaging of Jen’s ridge. We got in 36 points (see trip report). When we were half way through the Discovery guys did a spot on me explaining how ridges, leads, cracks, dynamics, and thermodynamics work. It was an interesting experience and since I had just finished a good hard morning of work with lots of success, I was feeling very calm and satisfied so the take felt like it went well. My patience was high so I managed to last, missing yet another meal, so these guys could retake and retake me doing the same thing again and again and again.
I got settled in for an afternoon of radio work at the command and control hut to write up all my stuff and spent the last hours of the afternoon catching up on paperwork. We set up the T-shirt sales and they went like hotcakes.
Just after 17:00, Jackie called on the radio to tell Jen that there was a new ridge forming. I tagged along with Andrew and experienced my first ridge building. I drove out with Andrew on the snow machine just in time to see it grinding and crunching away. It was just great. It sounds like a combination of Styrofoam and fingernails on a blackboard. The momentum was the most impressive. It wasn’t moving very fast, but there was this large flat plate that was moving with absolute confidence, like the vessel the Queen Mary heading slowly into port but determined to take out a pier. The speed was slow but the power and the feeling that there is no way to stop this thing was something one was definitely aware of.
Upon returning, I repaired Jen’s serial port with a careful soldering job of the battery connector so she could download the data from her 3 buoys that were recovered from the helicopter yesterday. It meant missing yet another meal, but the recovery of those data from the units that for a while I believed were lost, was worth it.
Tomorrow I’d like to check out the change of events between Lines #1 to Line #4 by way of Lines #2 and #3.
April 10 – UD Student Visit Continues
We were told this morning that the flight back for the boys was around 3pm so we agreed that Jackie’s tour starting at 08:30 around the perimeter would be a good way to get an overview of the spots to get good stereo shots. We loaded up a whole bunch of us on the wooden pallets that are pulled behind the big camp Alpine ski doos and also two small ski doos. (Katharine, Adrian, Mani, Scott, myself, Bruce, Jackie, Dan). It felt like a real sleigh ride. We started down the runway to the first feature which was near the 500m mark on Line #4 where a narrow lead had been working. The frost flowers have been incredible lately so the whole idea of a tour in such fine weather with little wind was just a super idea. We had Art (from Polar Palooza) with us to get Jackie’s tour lecture on film and that was just great. It really was a full scale educational tour with Jackie providing us with 20 years of insight in the field with all the features she has ever seen in the Arctic right here within a 3 km box.
We traveled around and saw the following things in the following order:
• (as above) Line #4 near 500m refrozen lead
• Big block of multiyear heaved up which had a refrozen melt pond (absolutely crystal clear with no salinity at all). Within the ice layers, the refrozen melt pond is a brilliant clear blue but a small piece nearby that had broken out was absolutely translucent clear with chandelier air bubbles inside.
• Shear ridge with no ice blocks at all, just these amorphous jumbles of crushed ice as a result of shearing, grinding action by lateral motion of the floes next to each other. Jackie and Bruce have named it the cauliflower ridge.
• The next few (part of the perimeter survey) were a collection of ridges at different stages of development from just a few humps that looked like the ice was punched from below, to small linear features, and then larger ones as we moved around about 1.5 km from camp in a clockwise direction from Line #4 to Line #1. At this point, Jackie commented that this collection of features was a rarity given the presence of so many dynamic features in close proximity based on 20 years of field experience.
• At about Line #6 the features were larger (north edge of the walking limits) so Jackie found a good spot to explain a feature called a Rubble Field which looks like something you would never want to traverse with anything involving a sled or a snow machine. It just looked like brutal topography to traverse. Someone had commented that such a rubble is the one that prevented Nansen from reaching the North Pole as his ship had come around to the Russian side which is noted for its rubble field icescape.
• We approached the end of our tour by coming around to Jen’s main ridge site then onward to two more very big ridge sites between Line #1 and Line #2.
The tour went later than expected and we were all cold when we returned but it was absolutely worth it. While we warmed up in the mess hut with cocoa, tea, coffee, and cookies, we asked about an update on our flight and found out it had been moved up an hour and a half. So we pounded down some cookies and chocolates and set off at 11am to get to work on the stereo stuff. We went straight for Jen’s ridge because that was the highest priority. We were fortunate that the diver hold plugs were lying about as these were great geometric cylinders lying on their side with a center hole (see stereo report). We measured one of them extensively and took both still and video takes around it. Then we proceeded to work on the ridge. We got about half way through the ridge when we were called up again and informed that we had to return at 12:45 because the plane was leaving promptly at 1pm (yet another schedule move up). So Mani, Scott, and I made yet another backup plan and decided on a strategy for me to take over their effort by repeating Jackie’s survey the following morning and getting the data to them upon my return. So we hurried back to the camp (bags were already packed). Mani and Scott unloaded their 2 HP cameras and the tripod and we confirmed all the camera settings. We decided to confine the sensitivity study to the cylinder we had already photographed. We were a bit bummed that we had our time cut so short yet again, but that is life in the Arctic. Despite the constantly compressing schedule, my UD team worked with its usual wonderful efficiency and we had a wonderful experience. We didn’t get to the cricket match, Mani and Scott missed a meal, but we had an incredible time with very good weather for the short period of time they were allowed to participate.
In the back of my mind as I waved goodbye and wished them well back to Fairbanks, I was already formulating the next level of requirements for bringing my students with me the next time such an opportunity arises. I have an outstanding team and I am so very proud of both Mani and Scott for making it here. We all wished that Chandra could have joined us and in the next experiment (should opportunity arise), I will make sure that he does with a bold requirement that my students get to be on the ice as much as possible.
I went to the mess to work out some IceSat orbits after that whirlwind and at about 16:30 (local time) the helo came back with Stefan and Torge several minutes still left on their flight. They burst into the mess tent to tell me that they had found the missing buoys. The person on radio duty told me I was clear to go after a refuel. Feeling that I might be able to make up for the failed buoy recovery yesterday, I went ahead and tried to retrieve the buoys. Sure enough there they were 7 km out (5 km more than anticipated). So we have a strange array but it is finally collected. When I landed I came back to camp absolutely psyched about the accomplishment. The joy was dashed into a state of bittersweet when I went to check back in at the command hut. The radio person informed me that he had not called Jenny so I was in hot water for taking an unauthorized flight that I thought had been cleared. He took the heat and we both went into quiet mode the rest of the night. I finished up the rest of my work for the day and then headed to bed in hopes of a better day tomorrow.
We traveled around and saw the following things in the following order:
• (as above) Line #4 near 500m refrozen lead
• Big block of multiyear heaved up which had a refrozen melt pond (absolutely crystal clear with no salinity at all). Within the ice layers, the refrozen melt pond is a brilliant clear blue but a small piece nearby that had broken out was absolutely translucent clear with chandelier air bubbles inside.
• Shear ridge with no ice blocks at all, just these amorphous jumbles of crushed ice as a result of shearing, grinding action by lateral motion of the floes next to each other. Jackie and Bruce have named it the cauliflower ridge.
• The next few (part of the perimeter survey) were a collection of ridges at different stages of development from just a few humps that looked like the ice was punched from below, to small linear features, and then larger ones as we moved around about 1.5 km from camp in a clockwise direction from Line #4 to Line #1. At this point, Jackie commented that this collection of features was a rarity given the presence of so many dynamic features in close proximity based on 20 years of field experience.
• At about Line #6 the features were larger (north edge of the walking limits) so Jackie found a good spot to explain a feature called a Rubble Field which looks like something you would never want to traverse with anything involving a sled or a snow machine. It just looked like brutal topography to traverse. Someone had commented that such a rubble is the one that prevented Nansen from reaching the North Pole as his ship had come around to the Russian side which is noted for its rubble field icescape.
• We approached the end of our tour by coming around to Jen’s main ridge site then onward to two more very big ridge sites between Line #1 and Line #2.
The tour went later than expected and we were all cold when we returned but it was absolutely worth it. While we warmed up in the mess hut with cocoa, tea, coffee, and cookies, we asked about an update on our flight and found out it had been moved up an hour and a half. So we pounded down some cookies and chocolates and set off at 11am to get to work on the stereo stuff. We went straight for Jen’s ridge because that was the highest priority. We were fortunate that the diver hold plugs were lying about as these were great geometric cylinders lying on their side with a center hole (see stereo report). We measured one of them extensively and took both still and video takes around it. Then we proceeded to work on the ridge. We got about half way through the ridge when we were called up again and informed that we had to return at 12:45 because the plane was leaving promptly at 1pm (yet another schedule move up). So Mani, Scott, and I made yet another backup plan and decided on a strategy for me to take over their effort by repeating Jackie’s survey the following morning and getting the data to them upon my return. So we hurried back to the camp (bags were already packed). Mani and Scott unloaded their 2 HP cameras and the tripod and we confirmed all the camera settings. We decided to confine the sensitivity study to the cylinder we had already photographed. We were a bit bummed that we had our time cut so short yet again, but that is life in the Arctic. Despite the constantly compressing schedule, my UD team worked with its usual wonderful efficiency and we had a wonderful experience. We didn’t get to the cricket match, Mani and Scott missed a meal, but we had an incredible time with very good weather for the short period of time they were allowed to participate.
In the back of my mind as I waved goodbye and wished them well back to Fairbanks, I was already formulating the next level of requirements for bringing my students with me the next time such an opportunity arises. I have an outstanding team and I am so very proud of both Mani and Scott for making it here. We all wished that Chandra could have joined us and in the next experiment (should opportunity arise), I will make sure that he does with a bold requirement that my students get to be on the ice as much as possible.
I went to the mess to work out some IceSat orbits after that whirlwind and at about 16:30 (local time) the helo came back with Stefan and Torge several minutes still left on their flight. They burst into the mess tent to tell me that they had found the missing buoys. The person on radio duty told me I was clear to go after a refuel. Feeling that I might be able to make up for the failed buoy recovery yesterday, I went ahead and tried to retrieve the buoys. Sure enough there they were 7 km out (5 km more than anticipated). So we have a strange array but it is finally collected. When I landed I came back to camp absolutely psyched about the accomplishment. The joy was dashed into a state of bittersweet when I went to check back in at the command hut. The radio person informed me that he had not called Jenny so I was in hot water for taking an unauthorized flight that I thought had been cleared. He took the heat and we both went into quiet mode the rest of the night. I finished up the rest of my work for the day and then headed to bed in hopes of a better day tomorrow.
April 9 – Buoy Recovery Day and Student Arrival
The morning was spent on the snow mobile recovering 4 of the 7 buoys that were located on this side of the active ridging area. These are the short deployment buoys without any telemetry. We did a pretty good triangulation and I was warned by Jackie that I might not be able to reach buoy #7 because it was on the far side of a large lead.
We needed to drive to the middle of line #5, jump a lead, and then go to the end of line #5 and start scanning. Jumping the lead part was the tricky part. Robert and I looked for about 15 minutes for a safe place to cross. We both found elements we thought would be safe and then found a spot that met safety criteria we both felt comfortable with. We looked for a spot that had some thick plastic ridging with only a narrow section of slush (50 cm wide) and the snow depth was lower on the other side. Robert took the radio and the ice pick and I drove the snow mobile in preparation for the crossing. I gave myself a good long straight shot and then rev’ed it right up and went across (see photo). It was the scariest thing I’ve done since coming here. I was grateful for Robert’s willingness and patience because we both thought very carefully about these sorts of situations and we were both willing to listen to each others ideas and come up with a safe and comfortable solution.
We headed out the end of Line #5 and saw our first 30 gallon bag full of snow and headed toward it. It was on the other side of another lead that was much wider but had quite some aggressive ridging (too much for the snow machine). So we took the long sled and the ice pick and hand picked our way over this new ridge/lead section. We reached the buoy and found it was #5. We saw in the distance to the left the next buoy and figured that was #7 and headed toward that an additional 0.5 km away from the snow machine. We retrieved that, took a bearing from there to the camp (see notebook) and headed back the kilometer it took to get to the snow machine. We then headed northward in the direction of the remaining two coolers.
After some time we found one (buoy #1) but realized we had overshot one (buoy #6), so we started a search pattern for it. We went way out into the deformation zone with the snow machine and carefully picked our way taking care not to be stationary for any length of time. We tried to find higher vantage points by standing on the seat of the snow machine and climbing to the top of some of the ridges but no success. After an hour of searching for the last buoy we decided to give up and head back to camp for lunch (it was about 11:30 at this point). We had radioed in that we had given up and were driving back to camp when right in front of us what did we see but the last buoy straight in front of us. We collected it, laughed about the bizarre finding, took a bearing, and headed back to camp. When I plotted up the locations I realized that #6 was twisted significantly out of alignment from the others so there had been quite some floe rotation as seen by this buoy in particular (either that or a different placement of this buoys by Jen and Jackie relative to the others).
After lunch I prepared for the arrival of my students on the 3pm flight and also prepared for the helo flight to collect the buoys in the afternoon. I went through all the information I knew based on what Jen and Jackie had told me and the sketch that Jackie had made. The students arrived and we were quickly told to get on board the helicopter to get those buoys as a high priority. Mani and Scott were still trying to get used to the place so it was a shock to them to already get ready for a helicopter ride. We got in and they were just amazed that they were able to do this. We went looking for the buoys with myself, the pilot and co-pilot feeling quite comfortable with the location and planning we had done for retrieval. We had a good sense of the previous bearing and a good idea of how the ice looked when we deployed the buoys. But this was to be a big learning experience for me. We looked for a good solid hour for those buoys. The ridges had grown into a huge size (found one taller than the helicopter) and the field had twisted and changed in structure. The helicopter guys even felt that the field had changed enormously since we had set the buoys out only a week ago. The end result was an empty cargo return and I was feeling like I had really let the team down. I learned later from Jackie that I must always take a position, range, and bearing on any buoy I deploy. It is also wise to have some form of telemetry so I was learning from this experience about how to properly deploy buoys in the event I’d be able to do this as an experiment myself someday. In my mind, I was already mapping out the design of my first buoy system based on what I learned from helping out with these buoys.
From about 4pm when we returned until just before dinner at 7pm, Mani and I went through every ounce of imagery we could to try and sort out where the buoys may have moved to. We got a good sense of how the field was moving dynamically and thought up some strategies of how to retrieve these things. During dinner after much discussion with fellow colleagues we finally decided that the best strategy was to inform the pilot and the Helo-EM bird team to keep a look out for our 3 remaining buoys during their remaining 4 flying days. If they spot anything in the next few days, they will take a GPS way point and record it and get that information back to us. I am quite glad that we started the retrieval process this early because it looks like we may need the remaining time to hopefully recover those buoys. Jen says she doesn’t know how to integrate a radio frequency responder into her short range buoy system so maybe I can help with the buoy development by checking with some of the CRREL technical guys when I get back to figure out how to do that. At least I got back all 6 CRREL units which I am responsible for. Two of them had difficulty working during the deployment, one of which I will need to replace so I will need to talk to their owner when I get back to figure out the best way to either repair or replace those two units.
After dinner, Mani, Scott, and I took a walk down to the lead in the middle of Line #4. I spent time with them on the basic physics and safety issues of leads, thin ice, and ridges. Scott made a test run with his video camera of the lead to get some panned images to see how well the camera worked in the cold. It seemed to do just fine. Jackie is giving folks a guided tour of the ridge surveys around the perimeter of the camp tomorrow and several of us have asked to come including Mani and Scott. We will see how tomorrow goes with that. The boys have to do that in the morning, return for lunch and then pack to head home already on the 3pm flight to catch the 5:45 out of Prudhoe to get back home. I wished I could have gotten them more time on the camp but that is all that was allowed due to constraints beyond my control.
Looking forward to a good day with them tomorrow. Even though they only get one day with one overnight, I still think it is a fantastic experience for them. I am hoping that it opens their eyes to the vastness of the world and keeps them in science. At the very least, Mani is really enjoying this and fully appreciates what is going on. Hopefully Scott will form some impressions as well. He only started this last fall and is still getting used to the UD Ph.D. program.
Time for bed. There is a cold running around camp and I need my sleep to keep from getting it.
We needed to drive to the middle of line #5, jump a lead, and then go to the end of line #5 and start scanning. Jumping the lead part was the tricky part. Robert and I looked for about 15 minutes for a safe place to cross. We both found elements we thought would be safe and then found a spot that met safety criteria we both felt comfortable with. We looked for a spot that had some thick plastic ridging with only a narrow section of slush (50 cm wide) and the snow depth was lower on the other side. Robert took the radio and the ice pick and I drove the snow mobile in preparation for the crossing. I gave myself a good long straight shot and then rev’ed it right up and went across (see photo). It was the scariest thing I’ve done since coming here. I was grateful for Robert’s willingness and patience because we both thought very carefully about these sorts of situations and we were both willing to listen to each others ideas and come up with a safe and comfortable solution.
We headed out the end of Line #5 and saw our first 30 gallon bag full of snow and headed toward it. It was on the other side of another lead that was much wider but had quite some aggressive ridging (too much for the snow machine). So we took the long sled and the ice pick and hand picked our way over this new ridge/lead section. We reached the buoy and found it was #5. We saw in the distance to the left the next buoy and figured that was #7 and headed toward that an additional 0.5 km away from the snow machine. We retrieved that, took a bearing from there to the camp (see notebook) and headed back the kilometer it took to get to the snow machine. We then headed northward in the direction of the remaining two coolers.
After some time we found one (buoy #1) but realized we had overshot one (buoy #6), so we started a search pattern for it. We went way out into the deformation zone with the snow machine and carefully picked our way taking care not to be stationary for any length of time. We tried to find higher vantage points by standing on the seat of the snow machine and climbing to the top of some of the ridges but no success. After an hour of searching for the last buoy we decided to give up and head back to camp for lunch (it was about 11:30 at this point). We had radioed in that we had given up and were driving back to camp when right in front of us what did we see but the last buoy straight in front of us. We collected it, laughed about the bizarre finding, took a bearing, and headed back to camp. When I plotted up the locations I realized that #6 was twisted significantly out of alignment from the others so there had been quite some floe rotation as seen by this buoy in particular (either that or a different placement of this buoys by Jen and Jackie relative to the others).
After lunch I prepared for the arrival of my students on the 3pm flight and also prepared for the helo flight to collect the buoys in the afternoon. I went through all the information I knew based on what Jen and Jackie had told me and the sketch that Jackie had made. The students arrived and we were quickly told to get on board the helicopter to get those buoys as a high priority. Mani and Scott were still trying to get used to the place so it was a shock to them to already get ready for a helicopter ride. We got in and they were just amazed that they were able to do this. We went looking for the buoys with myself, the pilot and co-pilot feeling quite comfortable with the location and planning we had done for retrieval. We had a good sense of the previous bearing and a good idea of how the ice looked when we deployed the buoys. But this was to be a big learning experience for me. We looked for a good solid hour for those buoys. The ridges had grown into a huge size (found one taller than the helicopter) and the field had twisted and changed in structure. The helicopter guys even felt that the field had changed enormously since we had set the buoys out only a week ago. The end result was an empty cargo return and I was feeling like I had really let the team down. I learned later from Jackie that I must always take a position, range, and bearing on any buoy I deploy. It is also wise to have some form of telemetry so I was learning from this experience about how to properly deploy buoys in the event I’d be able to do this as an experiment myself someday. In my mind, I was already mapping out the design of my first buoy system based on what I learned from helping out with these buoys.
From about 4pm when we returned until just before dinner at 7pm, Mani and I went through every ounce of imagery we could to try and sort out where the buoys may have moved to. We got a good sense of how the field was moving dynamically and thought up some strategies of how to retrieve these things. During dinner after much discussion with fellow colleagues we finally decided that the best strategy was to inform the pilot and the Helo-EM bird team to keep a look out for our 3 remaining buoys during their remaining 4 flying days. If they spot anything in the next few days, they will take a GPS way point and record it and get that information back to us. I am quite glad that we started the retrieval process this early because it looks like we may need the remaining time to hopefully recover those buoys. Jen says she doesn’t know how to integrate a radio frequency responder into her short range buoy system so maybe I can help with the buoy development by checking with some of the CRREL technical guys when I get back to figure out how to do that. At least I got back all 6 CRREL units which I am responsible for. Two of them had difficulty working during the deployment, one of which I will need to replace so I will need to talk to their owner when I get back to figure out the best way to either repair or replace those two units.
After dinner, Mani, Scott, and I took a walk down to the lead in the middle of Line #4. I spent time with them on the basic physics and safety issues of leads, thin ice, and ridges. Scott made a test run with his video camera of the lead to get some panned images to see how well the camera worked in the cold. It seemed to do just fine. Jackie is giving folks a guided tour of the ridge surveys around the perimeter of the camp tomorrow and several of us have asked to come including Mani and Scott. We will see how tomorrow goes with that. The boys have to do that in the morning, return for lunch and then pack to head home already on the 3pm flight to catch the 5:45 out of Prudhoe to get back home. I wished I could have gotten them more time on the camp but that is all that was allowed due to constraints beyond my control.
Looking forward to a good day with them tomorrow. Even though they only get one day with one overnight, I still think it is a fantastic experience for them. I am hoping that it opens their eyes to the vastness of the world and keeps them in science. At the very least, Mani is really enjoying this and fully appreciates what is going on. Hopefully Scott will form some impressions as well. He only started this last fall and is still getting used to the UD Ph.D. program.
Time for bed. There is a cold running around camp and I need my sleep to keep from getting it.
April 8 – Easter Sunday
Jackie and I got up at 3am to hide Easter eggs around the mess hall, command and control hut, and the latrines (nicely on top of the stored toilet paper). It was great!
Next morning everyone in some form or another did some little thing to celebrate Easter. The head of logistics had sewn his white felt boot liners together and put them on his head to look like bunny ears (funky bunny ears). The cooks had boiled and colored Easter eggs for breakfast and laid out Easter grass with little stuffed animals at all the eating tables. Everyone was in good spirits. It was a good day!
I took a walk to the ridge study at Jen’s suggestion but she and Alice were working together quite well so I stayed out of their way and just worked on photographing some depth hoar samples. I found a beautiful pit with big samples 1-1.5 cm in diameter. They looked like diamonds. After lunch I took a walk with Adrian and Katharine to check out the newly formed lead that had formed and now separated us from the later half of lines #4 and #5. It was a very good thing that we had finished the survey when we did because our lines are starting to be cut off. Jackie had called this our playpen and up until yesterday, our playpen extended to about 1.5 km in all directions before a lead had cut us off. Now there were several leads and we are limited to 500m excursions on lines #3, #4, & #5. Line #2 had a lead in front of the ridge about 500m beyond the end. Lines #1 and #6 still have big ridges at the end which are still approachable. The spring is coming and the ice is starting to break up but it has been gentle with leads spanning no more than 5 m – just enough to stop the survey of those regions but still possible to cross when needed. We have been really lucky with the timing and the weather for getting our work done.
Tomorrow Mani and Scott arrive and I will be very busy working with them for the next two days to get the 7 GPS buoys and collect stereo imaging of the ridges. Hopefully I can go with Andrew to survey these ridge areas with Mani, Scott and their stereo equipment. Hopefully the weather is nice tomorrow so their work days are effective ones. Hopefully we can get the helicopter time and snow mobile requests to get to where we need to go. A lot depends on many, many factors working out just right. Time for bed, I have a busy day tomorrow.
Next morning everyone in some form or another did some little thing to celebrate Easter. The head of logistics had sewn his white felt boot liners together and put them on his head to look like bunny ears (funky bunny ears). The cooks had boiled and colored Easter eggs for breakfast and laid out Easter grass with little stuffed animals at all the eating tables. Everyone was in good spirits. It was a good day!
I took a walk to the ridge study at Jen’s suggestion but she and Alice were working together quite well so I stayed out of their way and just worked on photographing some depth hoar samples. I found a beautiful pit with big samples 1-1.5 cm in diameter. They looked like diamonds. After lunch I took a walk with Adrian and Katharine to check out the newly formed lead that had formed and now separated us from the later half of lines #4 and #5. It was a very good thing that we had finished the survey when we did because our lines are starting to be cut off. Jackie had called this our playpen and up until yesterday, our playpen extended to about 1.5 km in all directions before a lead had cut us off. Now there were several leads and we are limited to 500m excursions on lines #3, #4, & #5. Line #2 had a lead in front of the ridge about 500m beyond the end. Lines #1 and #6 still have big ridges at the end which are still approachable. The spring is coming and the ice is starting to break up but it has been gentle with leads spanning no more than 5 m – just enough to stop the survey of those regions but still possible to cross when needed. We have been really lucky with the timing and the weather for getting our work done.
Tomorrow Mani and Scott arrive and I will be very busy working with them for the next two days to get the 7 GPS buoys and collect stereo imaging of the ridges. Hopefully I can go with Andrew to survey these ridge areas with Mani, Scott and their stereo equipment. Hopefully the weather is nice tomorrow so their work days are effective ones. Hopefully we can get the helicopter time and snow mobile requests to get to where we need to go. A lot depends on many, many factors working out just right. Time for bed, I have a busy day tomorrow.
April 7 – Wrap up of Level Ice Study
The morning was spent getting the last of the soot samples for Tom Grenfell. Then after lunch I was assigned to man the radios. It was a nice break as we were just wrapping up the last of the level ice study surveys, so I set about making a draft report of the simple stuff like a table of what we collected, how many data points of each time, and some sample pictures of each instrument and the array. I also started to get Tom Grenfell’s data sheet. We collected a total of 19 samples for Tom thanks to some wonderful help from the snow chemistry guys (Bill and Dan). It was a slow wrap up sort of day with the main part of the activity centered around the first dive beneath Jen’s ridge. The Discovery Channel guys were joined by their presenter and they scurried off immediately to the dive site leaving me to just enjoy the day and catch up on reporting.
It was tough day weather wise because the light was flat such that you couldn’t tell horizon from snow or the texture of the snow you were walking on. During our morning walk collecting snow samples, Robert fell a couple of dozen times and once up to his hips. I told him to take little half boot shuffles and look ahead with his eyes and feel ahead with his feet. On a day like this you have to walk like you do with slippers in the dark and focus more of your senses on the bottom of your feet. We saw a lot of deformation activity going on along line #2 with a bowed raised refrozen lead where it was perfectly flat earlier. At the end of the line there was a ridge with a crack that was now joined by a lead along the ridge and the crack ended at the ridge. The crack had run right through an old hummock multiyear section and stopped at the lead (see photos). We noticed a lot of 10 cm wide cracks in that region that cracked open the snow. When we first walked this line, there wasn’t as much snow and the ice and block sizes were easy to see and scramble over. But we have been experiencing snow showers each time the weather warms up. You can really see where a new ridge forms because the newly formed blue blocks don’t have any snow between their cracks. The blue color really stood out against the blank white landscape each time they formed.
It is Saturday and I have been here a whole week. It is also the day before Easter so I thought it was fitting to have a go at the shower. I had been melting ice all day in my hooch in a pan over the stove and storing it in a 20 gallon cooler jug. The shower consists of a warm heated plywood room with some holes in the floor and what looks like a bug sprayer. It is a new bug sprayer and it has only seen water in it with a hose and kitchen sprayer attached at the end. It does an amazingly effective job and the warm wood with the heater gives it a sauna effect. I could also take a good long shower this way with time to spare scrubbing a week’s worth of hard work off my body.
I came back into my hut and Jackie appeared with three bags full of empty colorful plastic eggs and bags of small chocolates and asked me if I’d like to help. We filled them and she set her alarm clock for 3am. We will wake up tonight and put them around the mess tent in the snow for folks to find tomorrow morning. Jackie is just way too cool about things like this.
So in wrap up, it was a good day. We are at the end of week 1 out of 2 and the first half of the intended science is done and we are starting to write things up. The next week will focus on ridges and dynamic features. Also my students will arrive on Monday and we will attempt to retrieve the GPS coolers with them. They are also bringing some video cameras to do some stereo work so we are hoping to take shots of the ridge for stereo rendering. We will try to visit some of the more interesting sites if the weather is good. Hopefully there will be enough light contrast while they are here so they can get some good shots. But at the very least, I am hoping to get them in a helicopter ride and give them the chance to pick up the buoys that we deployed. I am hoping that we can find all 7 of them. That is always the hardest part.
It was tough day weather wise because the light was flat such that you couldn’t tell horizon from snow or the texture of the snow you were walking on. During our morning walk collecting snow samples, Robert fell a couple of dozen times and once up to his hips. I told him to take little half boot shuffles and look ahead with his eyes and feel ahead with his feet. On a day like this you have to walk like you do with slippers in the dark and focus more of your senses on the bottom of your feet. We saw a lot of deformation activity going on along line #2 with a bowed raised refrozen lead where it was perfectly flat earlier. At the end of the line there was a ridge with a crack that was now joined by a lead along the ridge and the crack ended at the ridge. The crack had run right through an old hummock multiyear section and stopped at the lead (see photos). We noticed a lot of 10 cm wide cracks in that region that cracked open the snow. When we first walked this line, there wasn’t as much snow and the ice and block sizes were easy to see and scramble over. But we have been experiencing snow showers each time the weather warms up. You can really see where a new ridge forms because the newly formed blue blocks don’t have any snow between their cracks. The blue color really stood out against the blank white landscape each time they formed.
It is Saturday and I have been here a whole week. It is also the day before Easter so I thought it was fitting to have a go at the shower. I had been melting ice all day in my hooch in a pan over the stove and storing it in a 20 gallon cooler jug. The shower consists of a warm heated plywood room with some holes in the floor and what looks like a bug sprayer. It is a new bug sprayer and it has only seen water in it with a hose and kitchen sprayer attached at the end. It does an amazingly effective job and the warm wood with the heater gives it a sauna effect. I could also take a good long shower this way with time to spare scrubbing a week’s worth of hard work off my body.
I came back into my hut and Jackie appeared with three bags full of empty colorful plastic eggs and bags of small chocolates and asked me if I’d like to help. We filled them and she set her alarm clock for 3am. We will wake up tonight and put them around the mess tent in the snow for folks to find tomorrow morning. Jackie is just way too cool about things like this.
So in wrap up, it was a good day. We are at the end of week 1 out of 2 and the first half of the intended science is done and we are starting to write things up. The next week will focus on ridges and dynamic features. Also my students will arrive on Monday and we will attempt to retrieve the GPS coolers with them. They are also bringing some video cameras to do some stereo work so we are hoping to take shots of the ridge for stereo rendering. We will try to visit some of the more interesting sites if the weather is good. Hopefully there will be enough light contrast while they are here so they can get some good shots. But at the very least, I am hoping to get them in a helicopter ride and give them the chance to pick up the buoys that we deployed. I am hoping that we can find all 7 of them. That is always the hardest part.
14 April 2007
April 6 – Wrap up of Snow Survey
After breakfast, my snow team was ready to head out but Jenny caught me and asked me to prepare with Andrew to go out and survey the perimeter of leads and ridges within 2 km of the camp. We spent about an hour finding gear and prepping and then set off down Line #1 to the end. A few meters past the end of the line is the detailed ridge study ridge so we used that as a good starting point. We set a point just a few centimeters from a crack between the level ice and the ridge. We took Jen’s fantastic drill and used that to make a hole and then lowered down on a tape measure with a special brass fitting attached at the end which would snap close in the middle after measuring. We lowered it down and then brought it back up again until it just touched the bottom of the ice. We recorded ice thickness and freeboard with this reference. Then we gently tugged on the line and the brass fitting folded like a pocket knife into itself so we could pull it up the hole. We then measured 10m away from the hole perpendicular to the ridge along the line #1 bearing and took a picture from there. We also measured the width of the ridge and I used the tape measure at a distance to get a sense of the aspect ratio between block lengths and heights. Andrew was wonderful at teaching me how to use an ice chisel to test the snow covered ice over the rubbles of the ridge so that I could put my feet in the right places. Basically you put the ice chisel where you want to walk and then if it feels firm that is where you put your boot and proceed. We did 3 more sites like this before lunch (station 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3) and then headed back for lunch. It was enough to get a flavor of how to characterize and survey ridges and learn a bit about the detailed dynamics of how ridges form.
In many ways this ice camp is turning into an intense learning program. As one of the PI’s (Principal Investigators) I have to be able to make everything work or ask someone who knows how. I am finding that I am spending most of my time doing process engineering. I have to operate most of the instruments and usually prep a system, train up a team, get them up to speed, and then let them on their own while I prep up the next system. I found this to be the most useful contribution I could make at the PI level since I have engineering experience but this is my first ice camp. I also get to learn how to do things I’ve never done before from practical experts who understand the common sense parts of the science. It has been a great learning experience not just for me but for everyone. We all tried to benefit from each others talents and then we tried to support each other when we faced new challenges. The positive attitudes, the jokes, and the comebacks from the “Arctic stupid” moments were only possible because everyone was there to constantly support everyone. We all quickly accepted ourselves as fallible human beings and started from that common reference point. This is probably the key to our success because we didn’t have too many instances of hot head overrides.
After lunch, it was time to teach the two UK post-docs how to operate the GPR (ground-penetrating radar). The hook up was really straightforward but it took about a half hour to figure out how to get a signal because you have to hook up the antenna to the data recorder first and then plug in the battery to the machine so that (like a computer) it can boot up, check for peripheral connections and then the signal starts to flow. We did some tests down the runway and took much of the afternoon to get enough of a feel for it to be ready to use it by tomorrow. The two UK post-docs (Katharine and Adrian) will make runs with it tomorrow.
At about 4pm, I was asked to make a “FedEx” run out to the end of Line #1. Jen had run out of whip it flags so I found the stash from Bruce’s bins and carried them out. It was the first walk I have taken alone and I really enjoyed it (with radio and flare gun). The temperatures and wind were mild (-5F with little wind) and the sun was shining with a few wispy cirrus clouds overhead. It gave me a chance to just walk and think about what I really need to focus on next.
Got back, sorted out the day’s issues and spent the evening learning how to use some software to view our imagery. A bit of a slow day exercise wise but a good day to think and transition to more science and field prep issues.
Time for dinner and a chance to think some more.
In many ways this ice camp is turning into an intense learning program. As one of the PI’s (Principal Investigators) I have to be able to make everything work or ask someone who knows how. I am finding that I am spending most of my time doing process engineering. I have to operate most of the instruments and usually prep a system, train up a team, get them up to speed, and then let them on their own while I prep up the next system. I found this to be the most useful contribution I could make at the PI level since I have engineering experience but this is my first ice camp. I also get to learn how to do things I’ve never done before from practical experts who understand the common sense parts of the science. It has been a great learning experience not just for me but for everyone. We all tried to benefit from each others talents and then we tried to support each other when we faced new challenges. The positive attitudes, the jokes, and the comebacks from the “Arctic stupid” moments were only possible because everyone was there to constantly support everyone. We all quickly accepted ourselves as fallible human beings and started from that common reference point. This is probably the key to our success because we didn’t have too many instances of hot head overrides.
After lunch, it was time to teach the two UK post-docs how to operate the GPR (ground-penetrating radar). The hook up was really straightforward but it took about a half hour to figure out how to get a signal because you have to hook up the antenna to the data recorder first and then plug in the battery to the machine so that (like a computer) it can boot up, check for peripheral connections and then the signal starts to flow. We did some tests down the runway and took much of the afternoon to get enough of a feel for it to be ready to use it by tomorrow. The two UK post-docs (Katharine and Adrian) will make runs with it tomorrow.
At about 4pm, I was asked to make a “FedEx” run out to the end of Line #1. Jen had run out of whip it flags so I found the stash from Bruce’s bins and carried them out. It was the first walk I have taken alone and I really enjoyed it (with radio and flare gun). The temperatures and wind were mild (-5F with little wind) and the sun was shining with a few wispy cirrus clouds overhead. It gave me a chance to just walk and think about what I really need to focus on next.
Got back, sorted out the day’s issues and spent the evening learning how to use some software to view our imagery. A bit of a slow day exercise wise but a good day to think and transition to more science and field prep issues.
Time for dinner and a chance to think some more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)