A snow bollard

South Pole

Loading up equipment after testing near Mt. Erebus, just outside McMurdo

Erebus

On an LC-130 "Herc" flying to the South Pole

Flying to Pole

Flying over the Transantarctic Mountains

Trans-Antarctic Mountains

We used 10 geodetic GPS units to survey how much our stake network had moved.

GPS for surveying

Seeing how much this stake had moved.

Surveying

Loading up our huge sled to go camping.

Equipment

Loading up boxes to transport the ice core would drill.

Core Boxes

Loading up 1000lbs of batteries to power equipment through the winter.

Batteries

With the sun, blocking the wind is enough to make working tolerable.

Work Tent

The "4-inch drill" worked hard for three weeks drilling holes as deep as 350 feet.

Drilling

The drill gets guided down.

Drilling

Labeling a section of ice core. We need to know its depth, and which way was up.

Labeling Core

We drilled some shorter holes using the "Sidewinder" drill.

"Hand" drilling

We are using the empty holes to measure temperature and how fast the snow is compacting.

Empty Hole

We used temperature-sensitive resistors (thermistors) to measure the temperatures at the bottom of shallow holes.

Measuring Temperature

We needed more holes than core, so some of the spare core decorated our camp.

Core art

The ice core begins its long journey to Colorado. It will go by snomachine to the pole, by plane to McMurdo, by ship to California, then by truck to Colorado and New Hampshire, remaining frozen the whole time.

Transporting Core

Some measurements required sampling in a Tyvex suit to preserve their integrity.

Clean Measurements

Logging our snowpit. The strong wind was doing its best to fill the pit back in.

Snowpit

These instruments will stay in for two years to measure compaction of the snow.

Measuring Compaction

Power and logging for the compaction instruments through the winter.

Measuring Compaction

We used two radar systems to measure the thickness of the ice and the depth of different layers.

Measuring Ice Depth

We had many spectacular halos, which are formed by ice crystals in the air refracting light.

Halo

The wind forms many features in the snow, whcih is bad for driving but often quite beautiful. We called these saddle-horn-like features bollards because of their resemblance to that type of mountaineering anchor.

Bollard

Getting on the plane after two boomerangs

Boarding the LC-130

The edge of the Drygalski ice tongue on the flight south

Drygalski ice tongu

Cargo is pulled of the LC-130 with Mt. Erebus in the background

Unloading the LC-130

Getting off the Delta at the skiway. Deltas are one of the many ridiculous vehicles used for passenger transport around McMurdo.

Out at the skiway

Surface melt near the grounding line of the Ross ice shelf

Melt ponds

A small glacier joins the Beardmore

Beardmore?

A series of Piedmont glaciers. There Piedmont glaciers several places on earth (e.g. Malaspina in Alaska, Elephant Ear in Greenland). They are pretty much ice puddles where a glacier spills into a flat area.

Piedmont glaciers

Sometimes you can see rocks in Antarctica

Some rocks

Warming up the skidoos for a trip out to our old campsite

Skidoos

Squint between the straps and the GPS will tell you where to go

Navigation

Max had a number of instruments buried to measure firn compaction; we had to dig these instruments out.

Digging

Max had a number of instruments buried to measure firn compaction; we had to dig these instruments out.

Digging

It had snowed a lot this year, so we had an unexpectedly long way to dig.

Digging

It had snowed a lot this year, so we had an unexpectedly long way to dig.

Digging

Eating some New Zealand Christmas cake as a break from digging holes.

NZ Christmas Cake

We had a lot of holes to dig

Holes

Max's instruments were down holes like this

A borehole

Tying things to the sled to bring out all the equipment that overwintered.

Packing up

Putting things into the Conestoga

Packing up

We were driving near where a weather balloon came down, so we recovered it for NOAA

Ozone balloon

Max and Twit take the recovered balloon over to the Conestoga for transport

Ozone balloon

Sometimes controlling your radar requires a look at the computer under the blanket

Twit's radar

A view from the flight back to McMurdo

Transantarctic mountains

A lone emperor penguin walks on the sea ice

Emperor Penguin

Penguins are pretty bad at walking, so they bellyslide a lot

Emperor Penguin

A lone emperor penguin walks on the sea ice with Mt. Discovery in the background

Emperor Penguin

A look at Mt. Erebus from the north as we fly back to New Zealand

Mt. Erebus

Sea ice that has broken up

Sea-ice shards

Ice bergs, calved off some undetermined ice shelf or glacier

Ice bergs

Somewhere near Ross Island

An island

Somewhere in the northern Transantarctic mountains

Mountains

photos fieldwork
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David Lilien

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