{"id":4200,"date":"2023-08-04T16:20:50","date_gmt":"2023-08-04T20:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/?p=4200"},"modified":"2023-12-29T10:32:06","modified_gmt":"2023-12-29T15:32:06","slug":"2023-2024-season-preview-the-return-to-davis-ward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/2023\/08\/04\/2023-2024-season-preview-the-return-to-davis-ward\/","title":{"rendered":"2023-2024 Season Preview- The Return to Davis-Ward"},"content":{"rendered":"

(originally published 4 Aug 2023)<\/em><\/p>\n

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An uphill view of the Davis-Ward icefields<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

It’s been a while, folks. \u00a0 We missed you SO MUCH!!!!<\/em><\/p>\n

After three seasons cancelled due to pandemics and related logistical shortfalls, \u00a0ANSMET stands poised to return to the field this December. \u00a0We’ve been shy about sharing the details so far, and we apologize for that. \u00a0But it’s simply because even today we still feel like the rug could be pulled out from under us at any time- like it was last year in early summer, and the year before that too. \u00a0At risk of jinxing ourselves, ANSMET leadership now feels pretty solid about the upcoming 2023-2024 season, so it’s time to pull back the curtain and fill you in on the details about what we have planned.<\/p>\n

Our target for the coming field season is fairly predictable. \u00a0 The Davis-Ward icefields, which sit between and around the Davis Nunataks and Mt. Ward in the headwaters region of the Beardmore Glacier, have been a repeated target of 7 previous expeditions, resulting in the recovery of over 3000 meteorite specimens. \u00a0After all that work we’re within striking distance of finishing our systematic searching efforts. \u00a0 That’s a significant priority for us, and anytime we finish at a field site (usually after extending that target date several times) \u00a0it’s a landmark occasion for us.<\/p>\n

Formal planning for the 23-24 season truly began years ago. \u00a0When our last field season ended in January of 2020, we had assumed we’d be back in about 10 months, \u00a0so we left a substantial amount of gear and fuel carefully cached at our campsite. \u00a0That makes a tremendous amount of sense, of course- \u00a0every bit of stuff cached becomes something we don’t need to fly back out to Davis-Ward for the next season, a huge logistical savings. \u00a0That cache is proof we were planning to revisit Davis-Ward in the next season, 2020-2021. \u00a0 But of course history had other plans, \u00a0and when we next see that gear it will have been almost a full 4 years since we \u00a0promised we’d be back soon.<\/p>\n

The good news of course is that our plans for the coming season are VERY mature- \u00a0they’ve been refined and carefully hammered into shape for years, far longer than a “normal” season. There’s “bad” to temper the good, however; the maturity of our plans has been offset by reductions in NSF’s abilities to support deep field parties and almost complete overturn among the support staff that actually makes our work happen. \u00a0Relationships with supporting staff, program officers, contractors and other entities that we’d carefully cultivated for years are gone, wiped out by a stinkin’ little virus. On the other end of the pipeline, our grant funding also expired during the pandemic, \u00a0 so new proposals had to be written, submitted, reviewed and (thankfully) funded. \u00a0 In a nutshell, while we know exactly what we want to get done at Davis-Ward and exactly how to do it, \u00a0paving the path to the site has been (and remains) a challenging work in progress. \u00a0We are excited, cautious and hopeful.<\/p>\n

The plans<\/h3>\n

The 2023-2024 ANSMET field season will (hopefully) follow the pattern established by our most recent seasons, \u00a0but starting about a week later than usual. \u00a0A team of 8 field party members (details forthcoming in a future post) will depart the US in the first few days of December, \u00a0arrive in McMurdo 3-5 days later, \u00a0and get put into the field about 7-10 days after that (nominally mid December). \u00a0One of our mountaineers and a partner will be sent out to the Davis Ward campsite by Twin Otter several days before that to groom a skiway that will allow the use of a larger Basler aircraft for our main group put-in. \u00a0That advanced team will also have the daunting task of digging out a cache of supplies that’s been exposed to three Antarctic winters.<\/p>\n

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Progress map of Davis Ward icefields. Green dots represent meteorite finds from the last field season (2019-2020). Small dots mark the tracklines of one GPS-equipped snowmobile. Only a small sliver at the north end of the main DW ice tongue remains to be systematically searched, along with some of the icefield across the moraine to the north. Significant work also remains in the moraine girdling that ice tongue as well.<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Once the team is complete at Davis-Ward, \u00a0meteorite recovery becomes the priority. \u00a0Our first goal for the season is completion of systematic searching; \u00a0but in the case of Davis-Ward, \u00a0it’s not as simple as a limited number of traverses. \u00a0The remaining blue ice has a fairly dense covering of \u00a0wind-blown rocks disguising the meteorites mixed in; \u00a0and the remaining moraine searching is of course even slower work, with field team members trying to distinguish the dark-chocolate chunks (the meteorites) from the semi-sweet bits (the Ferrar Dolerite). \u00a0Weather and logistical delays could (as always) play a big role in the coming season; \u00a0but we’re hopeful that one side-effect of our late start, further past the Antarctic spring, \u00a0will be fewer early-season windstorms.<\/p>\n

If things go really well, sometime in early January the systematic searches will be completed and a mission accomplished<\/em> vibe will settle across Davis-Ward. \u00a0But rather than settle down on the infamous Davis-Ward “Beach” \u00a0for a well-deserved late-summer break, \u00a0the field team is scheduled to pack up and move on to the nearby Dominion Range Main icefield. \u00a0That potential move will include the first snowfield traverse we’ve done in about a decade, with a Twin Otter ferrying heavy or high-volume gear (ANSMET’s famous “Flying Traverse”). We’re very confident in the ability of our mountaineers to guide us safely along the route (particularly given that satellite imagery of the site is amaze-balls), \u00a0but NSF’s field safety folks (who don’t know us well)\u00a0remains a little skeptical. \u00a0Put simply, we’ve never forgotten how to do this and we have a long history of performing these traverses safely; the areas we operate in are an order of magnitude less risky than an alpine glacier or the Ross Ice Shelf. \u00a0But that kind of historical perspective isn’t something NSF easily hangs on to, and like the rest of the world they’ve grown more and more risk-averse.<\/p>\n

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Satellite mosaic showing both the Dominion Range Main icefield and the Davis Ward icefields. Our overland traverse would basically go straight from the lower triangle to the upper one, a 30 km, 6-8 hour trip through relatively benign terrain. the hardest part of the trip is the start; getting packed up and nosing our way through and around the Davis Nunataks and associated blue ice.<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

The new target, the Dominion Range Main icefield, \u00a0was first explored in 1985, during the same first-order reconnaissance-focused season that discovered Davis-Ward and several other sites in the region. The potential for the Dominion Range Main icefield to bear a significant meteorite concentration was confirmed during a more detailed reconnaissance effort in 2003. \u00a0There’s a lot of blue ice there, \u00a0maybe twice as much area as at Davis-Ward; but the setting is very different. Whereas Davis-Ward is a deflating ice tongue walled-in on 3 sides, \u00a0Dominion Main is blue ice that is slowed and stranded by a sidewall mountain range as it tries to empty gradually into the Beardmore Glacier. \u00a0Based on what we know about icefields (which may be extensive, but admittedly is still mostly anecdotal), this setting implies wide variations in ice velocity, \u00a0ablation rates and surface age across the exposed surface, which fits with the accompanying variations in the \u00a0concentration of \u00a0meteorite samples seen previously. \u00a0Suffice it to say we know the meteorites are there, and have ferreted-out a few of their favorite hiding spots; \u00a0but our understanding of the site as a whole is woefully incomplete. \u00a0January 2024 will be the first time we’ll go there with a focus on systematic recovery of meteorites, and we’ll just have to wait to see whether it’s truly a site for the ages.<\/p>\n

I’m going to close here with a quick shout-out to the planetary materials community, ExMAG and others. \u00a0The annual ExMAG meeting is taking place as I write this; \u00a0and community support for ANSMET was abundantly clear. \u00a0ExMAG and others need to remind NSF’s Office of Polar Programs how much they value ANSMET as a critical part of NASA’s mission, and help NSF understand they’re obligated to support ANSMET even if the project’s goals don’t address their own, narrower mission. \u00a0 Without your support, \u00a0the 2023-24 season might indeed not be taking place, so we are extremely grateful. \u00a0 \u00a0Thank you! \u00a0 \u00a0And with your continued support (and reminders to NSF that you like us), perhaps ANSMET once again can recover specimens on a consistent, yearly basis.<\/p>\n

-Ralph, \u00a0on the charmingly quiet campus of Case Western Reserve University.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(originally published 4 Aug 2023)<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s been a while, folks. \u00a0 We missed you SO MUCH!!!!<\/em><\/p>\n

After three seasons cancelled due to pandemics and related logistical shortfalls, \u00a0ANSMET stands poised to return to the field this December. \u00a0We’ve been shy about sharing the details so far, and we apologize for that. \u00a0But it’s simply because even today we still feel like the rug could be pulled out from under us at any time- like it was last year in early summer, and the year before that too. \u00a0At risk of jinxing ourselves, ANSMET leadership now feels pretty solid about the upcoming 2023-2024 season,<\/p>\n

Continue reading… 2023-2024 Season Preview- The Return to Davis-Ward<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":4207,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[27,28,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artscimedia.case.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/111\/2023\/08\/03113749\/looking-up-DW.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4200"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4548,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4200\/revisions\/4548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}