College of Arts and Sciences

This morning we awoke to a thick fog that is obscuring visibility to ~50 meters. This is the first time thus far in the season that we have experienced the infamous Antarctic fog, which is described in detail in the journals of Scott, Shackleton, and Amundsen. So we are...

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We woke to a beautiful sunny morning, with almost no wind. Last night, as we went to bed, bad weather was coming in, and we thought we might not be able to go out today. We were glad to be wrong (although I was having an awesome dream when...

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We haven't been in the field a week and we've already lost track of the date--Johnny reminded us this evening that today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. This auspicious day loses some of its meaning when you have 24 h of sunlight anyway. Perhaps...

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The weather was downright warm today, which made hunting for meteorites an absolute pleasure. We're still getting into the groove on this second day of hunting, but we were psyched to recover 12 meteorites just this afternoon. Just think of what we might discover in our first full day...

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Today we got our last major haul of cargo, including two skidoos and lots of gas for them, via the Basler. The Basler folks are remarkably efficient at getting cargo on and off of their plane and they also couldn't be any nicer--I'm guessing it's because they're Canadians (but...

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As many ANSMET fans are aware, Jim Karner is our science lead and Brian Rougeaux is one of our mountaineers. Jim directs our science operations and makes sure we're on task, while Brian ensures our safety throughout. They are both naturally modest types and don't frequently appear in pictures...

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Today was our first day of meteorite hunting as a team! Our first step was to take a look at the local geology to get a sense of what kinds of rocks are "normal" for this part of the world. There are a lot of beautiful metamorphics here, with...

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(Note that this post was delayed due to overall low battery power in our devices--but now the solar panels are set up, we are back up and ready to blog!) Today the winds simmered down, the stars aligned, and our remaining team members were able to make it to Iggy....

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Field Team Sparkle (Nina and Morgan) here, reporting from Iggy Ridge. Overnight the winds managed to pick up speed. I went outside to gather weather measurements and was almost immediately blown over once I was away from the protection of the tent. Right now the windspeed is a whopping...

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Today the weather has gone from exciting to thrilling to nuts. I took another temperature and wind speed measurement: -3.3 degrees F at a whopping 52 mph. Morgan went out to grab some additional food from our boxes and said that she almost got knocked down by the wind...

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