College of Arts and Sciences

We have received word that our so-called "flying traverse" camp move to our south Miller Range field site may happen as soon as tomorrow. A flying traverse is when we pack as much as we can on to the sledges we can tow behind our skidoos and then the...

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Greetings from the ANSMET Christmas/Boxing Day party! We started our day recovering meteorites, but took some time off to celebrate the holiday this afternoon and evening. Impressive amounts of food have been created and consumed in tents, drinks have been imbibed, presents have been opened, and now it's time...

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Today was Christmas Day here in the Miller Range, and it was such a glorious morning that we just had to go back to the site of our meteorite feeding frenzy of yesterday to see if we could find more meteorites. And find them we did--in one location alone...

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Well,  I've tried to be good. If you're a long-term reader of the blog you know I'm at home this year, here in absurdly-warm (60's) Novelty, Ohio.   Given I'm MUCH closer to the North Pole than the field team,  I've sent off the letter to Santa below, in the hopes he's feeling...

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Yeah....ANSMET 15-16 got its groove on. After yesterday's foggy and snowy tent day, this morning was sunny and warm (9 degrees F) and calm. We set off to the north for about 12 miles to an ice field that was.......covered in snow. We remained ever persistent and began our...

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The foggy weather of this morning turned to light snow in the afternoon, so it was all tent all day today. We made good use of our time: --Morgan baked delicious biscuits and brought them tent to tent. --Ellen, Con, and Nina practiced Christmas carols (sometimes in parts!) while Cindy supported...

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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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