At Sea, Heading South and West, January 7 and 8, 2013

We awoke to a low-pressure system that came in during the evening.  It is causing a bit of rocking and rolling.  No early wake up calls or anything like that.  Most people took advantage and are looking a bit more rested.  So today we have spent in lectures.  This morning we heard from Tim and Pauline Carr about their sailing voyage to the south polar seas.  It is impressive that the two of them have been married for some many years and spent much of them isolated from other people either on sailboats or on South Georgia Island as virtually the only year-around inhabitants.  They must have a special bond. She gives talks and generally helps out, his role is to the "designated hiker." Invariably, we land and Ted points to a hill or mountain and says, "Tim's leading the hike starting in ten minutes." Usually that's the last we see of him until it is time to return to the ship.

I did hear a talk on the birds we are expecting to see (by Jim Danzenbaker, Resident Bird Expert) and lectures by Ian Dalziel on the “Enigmatic Central Scotia Arc”.  Very confusing and somewhat controversial (as far as geologists go) about the tectonics of that area and how it fits into the development of the Circum-Polar Current and the development of Ice Ages.  Richard Alley was asked to comment on the impact of the development of the Circum-Polar Current with regard to the onset of the Ice Ages.  I stuck around after Ian’s talk to hear about how Richard feels that changes in C02 is the forcing event and that the development of the current and thermal isolation of Antarctica is peripheral.

Rob Dunbar, from Stanford, gave a talk on the research he’s done over the last 25 years or so on sea ice and the ecology of it.  The sea ice, according to Rob, is the largest ecozone area on the planet.  The ecology of it is founded on minute algae, diatoms, worms, etc. that live in bottom of the sea ice forming a rind on the bottom several centimeters thick.  In places the sea ice is coated black on the bottom with this material.  The organic matter rains down on the sediments and forms the basis for the Antarctic food web. 

An image of a sea ice core from Rob's talk. The dark band is the productive zone at bottom.

Richard Alley’s talk followed just before dinner.  In many ways it was a repeat of his discussion regarding climate change and the opportunities to effect change before it is too late.

Ted Cheeseman gave a talk on the Antarctic Treaty and governance of the Antarctic. No country is allowed to mine Antarctica or to claim it for exclusive use. Several countries have "sliced up the pie" into areas of influence. Interestingly, some of them overlap. The US does not designate an area of influence as to do so would "legitimize" that. Instead we have bases there including one at the South Pole (thereby occupying a piece of pretty much everyone else's slice).

At dinner I met a young Czech couple (Tomas and Renata) that are in the diplomatic corps in Beijing.  It turns out that they are not geologists at all but got involved in this expedition through a geocaching group.  They showed a great deal of enthusiasm about it once we got them going.  They showed several of us a century-old Norwegian coin that they recovered from a geocache at Grytviken.  Her personal geocache coin is engraved with a Japanese anime cartoon of a pirate.

The days are long here.  By that I mean that the sunlight lasts for more than 18 hours a day.  The days will only get longer the further south we go. The sunsets are beautiful.  Even though the sun goes down the sky stays lit for some time after and so it rarely is completely dark.

Sunset over the South Atlantic.

January 8, 2013: Still At Sea Heading West and South

Another day at sea…we are heading a bit north due to the presence of large rafts of sea ice.  Our intended destination is Elephant Island off the northern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.  Elephant Island is where Shackleton’s men awaited rescue.  Today is another mellow day of listening to talks.  Many are up on the bridge looking for sea life.  An alleged sighting of an Orca was called out earlier today.  However, it was problematic at best.  I did not see it and the onboard experts (Michael Moore and Kate Spencer) were leery of verifying that it was an Orca.

The seas grew rougher later in the day.  Finally, they reached wave heights of up to 10 meters.  The wind speeds approached 40 knots.  The boat was fairly stable but we were definitely rocking and rolling. Some of the passengers were pretty seasick. Doctor Lynne apparently gave some people injections to allow them to sleep. Thankfully, I seem immune and am glad to be that way.

A photo of another ship showing what the seas looked like crashing over the ship's bow.
My experience was virtually the same. It does look like the seas were a bit smaller here though.

We had some “discussions” rather than lectures later in the day.  They got a bit heated and, unfortunately, some people were rude when other viewpoints were expressed.  Of course, this was not during the tectonics discussion but rather during the climate change discussion.  The contentious issue was how to deal with climate change and how to present the issues to the public.  My roommate, Bob Milam, announced that he was “immoral” when he meant he was amoral.  Richard Alley was making the point that if you believe in the “Golden Rule” of doing unto others, as you would have them do unto you that you would advocate immediate action to switch to a non-hydrocarbon economy.  Bob’s point was that he cares less about that but that the argument should be made on the economic basis alone.