January 2017 – ANSMET, The Antarctic Search for Meteorites

“Goodbye”

January 30, 2017

Hi there - it's me, Minako. It will be my last blog post for the season. Brian, Jani and I flew back to Christchurch last Friday (well. we landed around 3am Saturday) with C-17. It was much shorter flight (5 hours flight instead of 8 hours using LC-130). It was...

McMurdo Update

January 26, 2017

Hi Everyone - are you forgetting about us and this blog? Jim and Alex made their way back to US. The rest of us are still here in McMurdo, enjoying our McMurdo life, patiently waiting our chance to go back to Christchurch. Next chance? It could be in a...

Spreading our Wings – in Mactown

January 25, 2017

It's nice to have opportunities to see and do things you didn't think you had time for, especially when you're in as unique a place as McMurdo station, Antarctica. At least that's what we tell ourselves when we're faced with more delays! Minako, Brian and I were bumped from the flight on Monday,...

Waiting Game again……

January 23, 2017

Jim, Brian, Alex, Jani and I were scheduled to head back to Christchurch today. I was so excited this morning, woke up at 6:30. I had good 5.5 hours to do final packing and cleaning dorm room. We had early lunch together, thinking about this will be the last meal...

Cleaning Fest (and some updates)

January 22, 2017

We had a busy day yesterday. We all worked hard sorting all the stuff we took to the field. We cleaned all of the dishes, did inventory for all of kitchen items, cleaned stoves, moved so many boxes around. Jim, Jani and I did inventory for meteorites Jonny and...

Back to McMurdo

January 20, 2017

This morning was brutal – minus 10F outside, wind 25 knots, blowing snow. We expected one (or two is we get lucky) Twin Otter flights. But there were five! Miraculously the Twin Otter pilots worked extra hours to get all of us back to McMurdo. John and Brian were the last to fly....

Time for return flights

January 25, 2017

It was windy this morning. We couldn't get out for searching more meteorites.. Instead, the first twin otter showed up to our camp site early this afternoon. Yes, it is time to think about our return flights. We need total of 6 twin otter flights. For the first one,...

“Elephant Moraine Time”

January 25, 2017

We used time today like we were living on another planet - one with a day more like 30 hours long. First, we woke to the familiar hiss of snow sand on the back of the tent, and at this point we're able to say, oh, it's about 22...

30 knots!

January 25, 2017

Strong katabatic wind went up to 30 knots or so. Wind chill temperature dropped -40F. Well.. it was another tent day today. We spend whole morning hearing snow hitting our tent, blowing wind. Just hearing those make me so cold!! I spent whole morning crowed into my cozy sleeping...

Back to work!

January 25, 2017

We got back in the field today after three straight days of tent! Basically ANSMET has a "tent day" when the weather does not permit us to search for meteorites- which means it is either completely overcast (sometimes called a whiteout) and we can't drive the skidoos because...

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