Pensacola Mountains, West Antarctica: December 20th

Who we are and what we're doing!

Welcome to our project site! We are six National Science Foundation-funded researchers from Pacific Lutheran University, Berkeley Geochronology Center, University of Washington, and the University of Maine who are studying the glacial history of the Pensacola Mountains in West Antarctica.

Our 2011-2012 field season is almost underway! We will spend about two weeks in McMurdo equipping ourselves for another month in the Pensacola Mountains. We spent December 16th, 2010 through January 17th, 2011 in the Pensacola Mountains, where we mapped and sampled glacial deposits along the Foundation Ice Stream. This year, we will revisit last year's field sites, and map new regions of the mountain range.

Our work will track the thinning history of the Weddell Sea Sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and will also provide insights into ice sheet dynamics, and the history of sea level contribution from this sector of the ice sheet.

In the coming weeks and months, we will use this site to show you our preparations for the 2011-2012 field season, and to share our initial results as they emerge. Please check back to catch up with our progress. Thanks for finding us!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

December 20th - Setting up our GPS Base Station

Hello friends!

Apologies for the long silence here at our blog. It always takes us longer to get our feet back under ourselves upon return. We're well into spring semester at PLU, and after a week-long spring break, we're finally caught up enough to get back to sharing pictures with you. Look for a series of posts about our 2011-2012 field season in the coming weeks. We're also enjoying some preliminary results that we're looking forward to sharing with you.

Thanks so much for your patience. Enjoy!

In recent posts, we shared pictures from our camp put-in by a LC-130. After a hectic day of departing McMurdo and setting up camp in our new home, we all slept soundly! Our first full day in camp centered around two tasks: setting up our Global Positioning System (GPS) base station, and drilling our first snow core! Today's blog post will show how we set up a GPS base station.

As with every day in camp, our first day began with melting snow to provide water for breakfast and lunch. You can see Greg in our cook tent, monitoring a pot of water on the stove.

Kat is busy loading up a sled with GPS gear. The large white disk in the yellow case is an antenna used to communicate with satellites to determine our position.

We will use snowmobiles to travel to field site locations. Also on the sled pictured here is a blue survival bag. All trips away from camp must include a survival bag in the event that we are stranded by bad weather.

We enjoyed balmy weather our first few days in camp!

Seth is ready to go!

And we're off! We are in search of solid bedrock that we can attach the GPS antenna to.

For most trips, we'll use four snowmobiles to transport six people and multiple sleds of gear.

The team begins searching for a level, solid bedrock location that we can attach the GPS antenna to. The antenna will collect information over two weeks to determine very precise location information. We will use this precise location information to calibrate and correct elevation and location information collected during sampling activities.

Greg is holding a drill we will use to make holes in the bedrock. These holes will hold a bolt we'll fasten the antenna to.

GPS information is recorded onto the yellow receiver shown in the case above. The battery Seth and Kat are setting up will be powered by a solar panel!