To try out all of the equipment for this experiment before setting out for Western Antarctica we went on a shakedown cruise about 15 kilometers from McMurdo. The goals were: arrive alive and without losing most of the equipment, drill some holes, set off some explosions in the holes, use some equipment to measure the vibrations from the explosions as they bounced back from layers of ice and rock below the sensors, and find out what was and wasn't going to work.
Getting there was half the fun, but working there wasn't bad either. Above
is a building that was constructed by the carpenter shop (the "carp shop")
in McMurdo to fit on a Komatik sled. Because of the shape we called it a Conestoga.
I believe they were used to explore Antarctica in the 1800's.
A couple of these were pulled along behind Ski-Doo's and used as homes for
the shot recording equipment during this shakedown and the rest of the experiment/expedition.
The equipment got to live in buildings -- we got to live in tents. Go figure.
Standing next to the building is the principle investigator for this experiment,
Sridhar Anandakrishnan, or "Czar Sridhar", as he liked to be called.
We just called him "Czar Czar" for short. Of course we also called
him other things, but not to his face.
All good shakedowns need a few truckloads of gear, and this shakedown was shaping up to be a doozey. All of the camping gear, as well as a lot of other stuff, was checked out from the Berg Field Center (BFC) in McMurdo. It is in a building that is way up on the hill behind McMurdo. A lot of the "fun"was getting your gear from there on the side of the hill down to where you really needed it.
We packed up and hooked everything together down at the "transition"(where the land meets the ice) in front of McMurdo.
We hooked the small trailer with all of the fuel and explosives to one Ski-Doo just to make any accident something really worth watching.
Ahh, the open road.
Above is not a picture of nothing. It is a picture of the horizon. Trust me. If you squint a lot you can still just make it out. This can happen, of course, during a whiteout, which is a storm with everything including the kitchen sink thrown in, but it can also happen when a simple wind/snow storm is approaching as was the case here. This storm hadn't even arrived yet, but things can start disappearing a while before they do. This storm decided to drop by just as we finished setting up camp. That was nice of it to wait.
2018-03-05