After 24 hours of wondering, proposing, and negotiating (in both the maneuvering and bargaining senses) we have a new plan. We’re sending our field team of 6 to Elephant Moraine.
There’s a lot of work associated with this switch- basically all the work that went into organizing our cargo for Shackleton has the be undone, and then redone. That’s because not only do we have a different target site but a different support aircraft as well. That reorganization will take a couple of days, after which we’ll go by Twin Otter directly to Elephant Moraine. That will take 6 or seven flights to put everything in (and the same at the end of the season to bring it all out).
The icefields surrounding Elephant Moraine have been a frequent target of ANSMET searches. We sent field teams to the region in 1979, 1983, 1987, 1990, 1992, 1996 and 1999; together these teams recovered 2225 specimens from a variety of local sites. During the latter two seasons we noticed an increase in snowcover on the icefields, presumed to be a result of regional climate changes induced by the stranding of the giant iceberg B-13 in McMurdo Sound. For most of the last decade we’ve focused on better locations further south, but we’ve monitored the situation through anecdotal reports, and since the iceberg broke up several years ago we’ve been trying to mount a small reconnaissance mission to resurvey the area. That finally took place earlier this season when Duck and John spent about a week out there. Conditions still aren’t as great as they were in the 80’s, but they’re clearly good enough for us to conduct searches and recover meteorites. Our goal will be systematic sweeps between (and adjacent to) the areas we informally call Texas Bowl and Meteorite City.
Of course the main reason we’re going to Elephant is that we can. The availability of planes and fuel from Shackleton Glacier Camp is far below expectations- enough that they’re actively cancelling groups planning to work out of there. We actively considered a return to some other sites too, such as Meteorite Hills; but we don’t have any recent reconnaissance there, so we’d be flying blind in terms of snow cover, landing sites, etc. By switching to a location that’s supportable entirely from McMurdo stockpiles and has a landing site we proved viable only a week ago, our group removes itself from the logistics math of Shackleton, and that may be enough to rescue the season for not just our project but others as well. To use a somewhat dark analogy, the good ship Shackleton was sinking- and rather than argue for our place on the ship until it disappears beneath the waves, we grabbed our gear and took off in a lifeboat toward a promising island. We may not get where we planned to go, but we’ll be fine, and our absence might just be enough to keep Shackleton afloat (at least for a while).
In other news, Lindsay and Brian are taking a couple of days in New Zealand before heading back to the US. Duck and I are packing up and listed on a flight to Christchurch for Thursday, but it’s unlikely we’ll get on that flight (it’s overbooked by almost 100%). Meanwhile the whole crew will be working hard tomorrow, reconfiguring our cargo, recalculating our food and fuel needs, taking gear out of the system we no longer need, and myriad other chores. It should go quickly; after all, we practiced this just a few days ago!
-posted by rph from McMurdo Station