{"id":4695,"date":"2024-01-26T10:46:37","date_gmt":"2024-01-26T15:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/?p=4695"},"modified":"2024-01-26T10:46:37","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T15:46:37","slug":"post-for-january-19-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/2024\/01\/26\/post-for-january-19-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Post for January 19, 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A large meteorite found in the sweeps of the Far North Ice Fields. Several meteorites of similar size were found today.<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

The sheer amounts of snow\u2014and how much it drifts and buries everything in its path. The dynamism and massive scale of the landscape. How quickly we developed familiar routines. The joys and comforts of a tent-home cooked meal. The way anything adhesive predictably fails to stick in the driest, coldest desert on the planet.<\/p>\n

Davis Ward has gifted us these\u2014and many other\u2014surprises in the short time we\u2019ve been here.<\/p>\n

On Friday morning, when I was on a call with a friend on our satellite phone (it was surprise to me that we\u2019d have one to begin with), he asked me, \u201cWhat\u2019s the most surprising thing about your life there?\u201d<\/p>\n

It took me a minute to answer, but the first thing that came to mind was the unconditional camaraderie. I\u2019d heard about it from other ANSMET vets and from John Schutt\u2014but it\u2019s one thing to hear about it and another to experience it. A little over a month ago, we were essentially perfect strangers. But Antarctica has a way of bringing people together in unexpected ways.<\/p>\n

Inspired by my conversation with my friend, I posed the question to each pair of tent mates after we all had had a chance to make and eat dinner after a long and productive day recovering meteorites. Each exchange gave me a beautiful (and sometimes funny) glimpse into how they were experiencing their time here.<\/p>\n

Below are snippets of our conversations. I hope you\u2019ll enjoy them as much as I did.<\/p>\n

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A wind scoop that we viewed several days ago. This forms when the airflow causes a circulation that prevents snow buildup in the scoop.<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Erin Gibbons:<\/em> Mine has mostly to do with the snow. Those first couple of days with the wind! [It was gusting at roughly 30mph at times.] The amount we had to dig out the tent stakes knowing that you guys had not been here that long. [It was a couple of feet accumulated over just two weeks]\u2026It\u2019s mad. The other thing that surprised me was when we\u2019ve had those really dull, monotonous, pallid days where the sky is the same color as the snow and you just cannot walk. It\u2019s fun for me to read the stories of the early explorers while you\u2019re here\u2026and they\u2019re talking about how on these diffuse-light days, they\u2019re just falling over like drunkards. If I\u2019d read that at home, I wouldn\u2019t have gotten it. [But] you just can\u2019t see the difference between a snow drift and background, and I was just so surprised at how the definition of the world disappears.<\/p>\n

Lauren Edgar (Erin\u2019s tent mate):<\/em> Related to that, I was surprised by the scale of the topography here\u2026Distances are greater and mountains are taller, and this is just a much bigger world than I anticipated.<\/p>\n

Erin:<\/em> I agree! When you think of an ice sheet, in my head it\u2019s flat and then we get up there, and it\u2019s these big undulations.<\/p>\n

Lauren:<\/em> An amusing surprise in daily life is that no adhesive sticks. Duct tape doesn\u2019t work! Plastic bags are bursting at the seams and brittle. The food that I thought I\u2019d want in the field is not what I want because it\u2019s frozen solid. [laughs]<\/p>\n

Erin:<\/em> What is your surprise?<\/p>\n

Daniela:<\/em> Partly the undulations in the ice. Yesterday, when we were driving home, the little ripples in the ice reminded me of the brain\u2019s grooves.<\/p>\n

Erin and Lauren:<\/em> Oh yeah!<\/p>\n

Daniela:<\/em> We all see what we know. [I\u2019m a neuroscientist by training, and a science reporter by trade.] And then how much interdependence and support there is among the group.<\/p>\n

\"\"

A few days ago the team saw a shimmering cloud while searching a wind row. The iridescent cloud was quite a sight. Does anyone know what type of cloud this is or what causes the effect? Is it unique to polar regions? [From left to right: unknown foot, Erin, Jim, unknown, Daniela, Jon<\/span><\/em>] \u00a0Editor’s note- you got it right- Iridescent Cloud is a formal name for these, also known at times as “Nacreous” clouds. \u00a0When the ice crystals in a cloud are particularly tiny, so small that forward scattering and transmission are almost the same thing, and too small to have any preferred orientation in the wind, you get clouds that shine like pearls. \u00a0They can form anywhere rising humid air cools really, really fast. \u00a0This one’s clearly an orogenic cloud forming as wind from the left hits one of the Davis Nunataks and rises just enough that the tiny bit of humidity it had at the surface crystallizes out. \u00a0 It’ll be a lenticular if the wind picks up…..<\/span><\/p><\/div>Jim Karner:<\/em> Finding all those big meteorites at the Far North Ice Fields today [Friday].<\/p>\n

Daniela:<\/em> Why were you surprised by that?<\/p>\n

Jim: We have been cleaning up the last remaining meteorites at Davis Ward for a couple of years. There isn\u2019t a lot of ground that hasn\u2019t been covered\u2026We were in a new place, and obviously there were big meteorites out there. That shows you the power of the systematic sweeps. You find a lot more meteorites than if you\u2019re just randomly driving places. It\u2019s much more efficient. That was a real cool thing that I was surprised by. Brian, you have to give a different one.<\/p>\n

Brian Rougeux [Jim\u2019s tent mate]:<\/em> That was mine [laughs]\u2026I was a little surprised by how much ACL [allowed cargo\/cabin load] they\u2019re giving us on the flight out\u2026We have a good chunk on the way out.<\/p>\n

Daniela:<\/em> So what does that allow us to do?<\/p>\n

Brian:<\/em> In theory, we might be able to get out of here with fewer flights. It\u2019s more efficient.<\/p>\n

Jim:<\/em> It also surprises me that you don\u2019t put your boots up. [Some ANSMET folks hang their boots at the top of their tents to dry and warm them.]<\/p>\n

Brian:<\/em> I would say just try it once, and see if you like putting on warm boots or if you prefer cold boots in the morning.<\/p>\n

Daniela:<\/em> The answer to that is clear.<\/p>\n

Brian:<\/em> I think so.<\/p>\n

Daniela:<\/em> But you also forget that we\u2019re short. We can\u2019t reach up there!<\/p>\n

__<\/p>\n

Jon Friedrich:<\/em> The most surprising thing for me how fast the camp settled into a routine. That was good. And now it just feels normal to come here and cook dinner the best you can [with the stove next to your sleeping bag]. It\u2019s been about a week?<\/p>\n

Daniela:<\/em> We hit two weeks today actually.<\/p>\n

Jon:<\/em> You\u2019ve been here a bit longer, but I\u2019ve only been here one week yesterday. [Our team flew out to our field site on different flights, over the course of multiple weeks.] I expected it to take forever to get into a routine and figure things out. But we\u2019ve got it figured out for the most part.<\/p>\n

Robert Citron<\/em> (Jon\u2019s tent mate): I would agree with that.<\/p>\n

Jon:<\/em> Your hamburger yesterday\u2014he made this beautiful burger and he was like, \u201cThis is the best burger I\u2019ve ever had”. Tonight, he had the best steak he ever had.<\/p>\n

Robert<\/em>: That steak was good! And the scenery! I knew I was going to be impressed by the scenery.<\/p>\n

Jon:<\/em> That\u2019s a good one. You talk about that a lot.<\/p>\n

Robert:<\/em> Driving on the snowmobiles through this amazing scenery, I just feel elation.<\/p>\n

Like Robert, Jon, Erin, Lauren and I, Minako<\/em> (my tent mate) was also mesmerized by the topography of our field site: \u201cWherever you go, it\u2019s really beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, we ended the day with 30 more recovered meteorites\u2014including several chunky ones like the ones Jim mentioned\u2014which scientists all over the world will be able to use to hopefully uncover new surprising details about the origins of our solar system.<\/p>\n

-Daniela, from the village of \u00a0Davis-Ward.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sheer amounts of snow\u2014and how much it drifts and buries everything in its path. The dynamism and massive scale of the landscape. How quickly we developed familiar routines. The joys and comforts of a tent-home cooked meal. The way anything adhesive predictably fails to stick in the driest, coldest desert on the planet.<\/p>\n

Davis Ward has gifted us these\u2014and many other\u2014surprises in the short time we\u2019ve been here.<\/p>\n

On Friday morning, when I was on a call with a friend on our satellite phone (it was surprise to me that we\u2019d have one to begin with),<\/p>\n

Continue reading… Post for January 19, 2024<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":4696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[27,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artscimedia.case.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/111\/2024\/01\/26102241\/Blog_Jan19_1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4695"}],"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=4695"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4701,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4695\/revisions\/4701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}