Conducting a movement

Pole, apopular placepage 5

Rancho Penguinopage 6

No more cold feetfor Antarctic flierpage 11

Of shopping andscavengerspage 10

I N S I D E

“It’s ironic, drinking warmbeer in Antarctica.”

- McMurdoite on someone who couldn’t

wait for her beer to chill

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

TheAntarctic SunDecember 10, 2000

www.polar.org/antsun

Published during the austral summer at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, for the United States Antarctic Program

On top of thousands of feet ofice, they are listening. In theheart of the Dry Valleys, theyare listening. A network of

super-sensitive seismometers placed at dif-ferent points in Antarctica is helping scien-tists map the earth below the Ice in greaterdetail than ever before, and a new wave ofthem is about to go in.

Ears to the Ice

see Ears on page 4

Sridhar Anandakrishnan, right, and DonVoigt set an insulated instrument box into

the snow near Siple Dome. The seismometer rests on a block of woodthat transmits vibrations from the snow

and earth below. Photo by Jerry Bowling.

By Josh LandisSun staff

Preparing to move McMurdo’s runway seven miles from the sea ice to Williams Field, Frank Thompsonaligns a Challenger trailer as Brad Johnson pushes it into place with a Cat. The annual switch occurswhen the ice gets too soft for wheeled planes to land. The two dozen or so buildings that service theairfields are pulled by heavy equipment across the sea ice convoy-style. Photo by Josh Landis.

2 • The Antarctic Sun December 10, 2000

News In BRIEFPHI wins contract rebid

The National Science Foundation has awarded a new con-tract to Petroleum Helicopters Incorporated to provide heli-copter support to the United States Antarctic Program.

PHI has held the contract since the 1996-1997 season, itsfirst on the Ice. The operation employs four aircraft, sevenpilots and five mechanics.

The Lafayette, La., company has a fleet of more than 300helicopters and has operated in more than 40 countries, rang-ing from emergency medical services in the U.S. to varioususes in South America, Africa and the former Soviet Union.

“I’m exceedingly pleased that those who made the selec-tion had the wisdom to pick PHI for another five years,” saidNational Science Foundation station representative DaveBresnahan.

The contract consists of a two-year initial term with threeone-year options for renewal. Changes planned for the futureinclude swapping one of the three A-Star helicopters for anotherBell 212, bringing the total fleet here to two A-Stars and twoBells. The Bell models are more versatile and carry more weight.

“It’s a very warm feeling to be welcomed back,” said JackHawkins, head of PHI operations on the Ice.

- Josh Landis

National Geographic to feature AntarcticaA writer and a photographer for National Geographic mag-

azine are visiting Antarctica to produce a feature story for 2001about research on the continent.

Freelance photographer Maria Stenzel and writer RoffMartin Smith are focusing on developments in science sincethe magazine’s last comprehensive coverage of the continent inApril 1990.

Smith has written stories and a book for NationalGeographic. This is his first story for the magazine aboutAntarctica, but it’s his second visit to the continent. In 1994-1995, Smith spent a summer at Australia’s Mawson base.

Stenzel photographed Antarctica for National Geographicarticles in 1996 and 1998.

The feature Stenzel and Smith are working on will focus onhow Antarctica provides a unique view of Earth and of the uni-verse and on how scientific work here offers insight into thepast and future, National Geographic editor Lynn Addison said.

“Our readers are tremendously interested in Antarctica,” shesaid.

Smith and Stenzel are scheduled to leave in late Decemberand return in January to travel by yacht along the peninsula andto King George Island.

- Beth Minneci

Mardi Gras always falls on theTuesday before Ash Wednesday. Thisyear, Mardi Gras falls on February 27,but in the time-honored tradition ofchanging holidays to fit Antarctica’sschedule, Mardi Gras in McMurdo isthis week. The two-day celebration kicksoff 8 p.m. Friday at Gallagher’s with thecutting of the King’s Cake. Later thatnight, the Mystick Krewe of McMurdowill select its King and Queen.

On Saturday, a ball will follow aparade, which will begin at the Chapel ofthe Snows at 8:00 p.m.

For more information, contact therecreation department.

No one knows the exact origin ofMardi Gras, although it is often attributedto the Romans whose pagan orgies wereheld during the spring season. TheFrench in New Orleans had privatemasked balls until the Spaniards tookover in 1718, when parties and streetdancing were banned. It wasn't until1827, when Americans took control ofthe city that masked parties wererestored.

In 1857, a group of men formed a

secret society called the Mystick Kreweof Comus to protect the future of MardiGras. The Krewe of Rex was the first toanoint its own King. The Krewe of Zuluwas formed by the blacks of NewOrleans to mock the snobbishness of theKrewe of Rex. Zulu's parade wouldmeander from barroom to barroom injunky cars and wagons. If you wanted tosee the parade, you had to find the barsthat sponsored the floats as they wereobligated to pass those bars.

The throwing of trinkets, or "throws",to the crowds was started in the early1870’s and is a time-honored tradition.Other popular throws include bikiniunderwear, long pearl beads and stuffedanimals.

Other traditions include the MardiGras Balls and the King’s Cake.

Attendance at the older, more aristo-cratic balls is by invitation only. They areformal affairs for the Krewe. The identi-ties of the King and Queen are a closelyguarded secret until the night of the ball.In the States, Mardi Gras season beginson January 6th, the day the three WiseMen visited the Christ Child. As a symbol

of this holy day, a tiny plastic baby isplaced inside each "King Cake." The cakeis decorated in the three Mardi Gras col-ors to resemble a jeweled crown to honorthe Wise Men. The official Mardi Grascolors are purple, representing justice,green, which represents faith and gold,representing power. The Krewe ofMcMurdo will use the finding of the babyto determine this year’s King and Queen.

One event that’s become popular inrecent years is the baring of women’sbreasts in order to "earn" Mardi Grasbeads. The earning of beads in this man-ner is not a true Mardi Gras tradition anddoesn’t take place during any of the offi-cial Mardi Gras events. After the parades,throngs of drunken tourists invade theFrench Quarter and it is there that womenhave this dubious opportunity. It wouldbe worth noting, as McMurdo’s MardiGras celebration nears, that, traditionally,beads are given to parade spectators ofboth genders as a reward for their smilesand enthusiasm and that flashing is nevera requirement. �

- Robert Lafaye and Robin Krumm

Mardi Gras SaturdaySummer celebration at McMurdo Station

the week in weather

around Antarctica

The Antarctic Sun, part of the United StatesAntarctic Program, is funded bythe National ScienceFoundation.

Opinions and conclusionsexpressed in the Sun are not

necessarily those of the Foundation.Use: Reproduction and distribution are

encouraged with acknowledgment of sourceand author.

Publisher: Valerie Carroll,Communications manager, Raytheon PolarServices

Senior Editor: Josh LandisEditors: Beth Minneci

Contributions are welcome. Contact theSun at AntSun@polar.org. In McMurdo, visitour office in Building 155 or dial 2407.

Web address: www.polar.org/antsun

McMurdo StationHigh: 38F/4CLow: 14F/-10CWindchill: -15F/-26CWind: 37 mph/59 kph

Palmer Station (Saturday)High: 40F/5CLow: 25F/4CAvg. temp: 32F/0CWind: 26 mph/43 kph

South Pole StationHigh: -12F/-25CLow: -26F/-32CAvg. temp: -19F/-28CWind: 28 mph/45 kph

around the world

Kabul, AfghanistanHigh: 55F/13CLow: 20F/-7CSan Jose, Costa RicaHigh: 85F/29CLow: 64F/18CTallinn, EstoniaHigh: 42F/6CLow: 38F/3C

Gulfport, Miss.High: 66F/19CLow: 51F/11CHollywood, Calif.High: 65F/18CLow: 56F/13CJuneau, AlaskaHigh: 26F/-3CLow: 17F/-8C

Saturday’s numbers

December 10, 2000 The Antarctic Sun • 3

• http://www.arcticculture.about.com/culture/arcticculture/cs/newspapers/A portal for Arctic newspapers fromAlaska to Iceland to Russia.

• http://www.polarnews.com/A gathering point for news about thepolar regions, with links to Arctic newssources.

• http://www.nunatsiaq.com/The newspaper of Nunavut, a new Canadian territory that was created in 1999. It’s also theplace where former Antarctic Sun editor Aaron Spitzer now works.

Newsfrom theArctic

Poetry (Maximum length 30 lines.)Fiction (Maximum length 500 words.)Finish this story... (Maximum length 500 words. Scenario available at the Sun office.)

Entry deadline: 6 p.m. Dec. 24Enter via e-mail to AntSun@polar.org, or at the Sun office in McMurdo’s Building 155.

The Sun’sAnnual creative writing festival

Calling all readers...

Last Sunday’s 5K Turkey Trot – top finishers and their times

Women39 and younger

Women40 and older

Men39 and younger

Men40 and older

1 2345

Lisa Farber24:51

Stan Sabbatini26:30

Meg Flanigan29:30

Sara Smolenack31:27

Carrie Block31:59

Karen Joyce30:55

Peggy Malloy35:24

Gloria Oswald37:44

Ann Dal Vera40:48

Nancy Ferrel50:49

Steffan Freeman19:41

Hiram Henry19:43

Steve Kupecz21:29

John Hoppe22:15

Benny McLean22:53

Jeff Rein23:25

Tracy Prouty28:34

John McGoff29:13

Joe Baros45:59

1 2345

1 2345

1 234

Kristan “Stan”Hutchison Sabbatini,left her cat, husband,and a job at Alaska’sJuneau Empire to

become a janitor at McMurdo. Afterthree weeks cleaning toilets, she'sturning in a mop for a pen again. As ofMonday, she will become a member ofthe Sun staff. Stan has a master’sdegree in political science from Bard College in NewYork and 10 years with newspapers inWashington State, Alaska, andWashington DC.

The Sun’s new staffer

4 • The Antarctic Sun December 10, 2000

“This is the instrument that measures the Earth’s move-ment,” said Sridhar Anandakrishnan, a geophysicist withthe University of Alabama. He pulled a dull, gray cylinderout of a snug, foam carrying case. It looked more like awater meter than a vibration detector capable of being setoff by a person’s voice. But inside the seismometer, deli-cate plates respond to the slightest motion, and a nearbycomputer hard drive records it all.

Thousands of independent seismometers around theworld are constantly listening for the sounds of tremorsand shakes that ripple through the core of the earth. Thechanging characteristics of these sounds over the dis-tances they travel allow scientists to reconstruct the prop-erties of the Earth’s mantle and crust, or the regions clos-est to the surface.

Antarctica is a unique outpost, with little known aboutthe layer of earth right beneath the ice. Anandakrishnanand fellow researcher Doug Wiens are on a mission to lis-ten as closely as they can. There are already a number ofseismometers on top of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, atfour Automatic Geophysical Observatories. Six instru-ments have also been installed on the West Antarctic IceSheet. They plan to set up eight more this year, includingspots in the Dry Valleys and at Arrival Heights aboveMcMurdo Station.

That’s just the start. By the end of next season, theyhope to have 52 seismometers working around the conti-nent. That will be a grand total from two separate scienceevents, but all the data will be pooled and analyzed forsigns of the Earth’s changing surface under the ice.

Anandakrishnan says the idea behind the technology isa lot like the medical tool, Magnetic Resonance Imaging(MRI), on a global scale. As different energy waves trav-el through the crust and the mantle, they are affected bythe properties of the matter they pass through. By exam-ining the time it takes for a wave from an earthquake inAsia to reach Antarctica, for example, geophysicists candetermine the forms and densities the wave traversed.

The more listening devices, the more detailed the pic-ture. Once all the different data are compiled, a three-dimensional picture emerges. But instead of bones andorgans, as with the MRI, scientists get ideas of the rocksand magma beneath the surface

One of the puzzles they’re trying to solve is how Eastand West Antarctica fit together geologically, how theyformed and how the two parts of the continent are chang-ing.

“They are very different beasts,” said Anandakrishnan.“We want to know the form of the mantle underneath thecrust.”

The thousands of feet of ice the instruments rest on do notpose a problem. Researchers know the density and proper-ties of the ice and account for it in their measurements.

Don Voigt, bottom, and Sridhar Anandakrishnan workon the wind generator at the Siple Dome site. A combi-nation of solar and wind energy powers the equipmentand keeps it warm enough to function. Photo by Jerry Bowling.

Ears From page 1

There are two major challenges to gathering seis-mic data 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They arekeeping the equipment powered and keeping it warm.During the austral summer the constant supply ofsunlight helps. Solar cells stay bathed in light and,combined with wind-generated power, that electrici-ty can keep the unit running and warm. But in thewinter, when solar energy is taken out of the equa-tion, it’s all dependent upon wind power. In WestAntarctica the winds can be very low and the tem-perature very cold.

“When the temperature reaches a certain point, thesystem shuts down,” said Anandakrishnan. The harddrives that record the vibrations can’t operate and thedown time is dead time for seismic data. Fortunatelythat doesn’t happen too often, as the instruments aresituated in an insulated box buried beneath the surfaceof the snow. If they ever do fall silent, a satellite uplinktells anyone monitoring the site what went wrong.

“The ultimate goal is to derive a picture of rock lay-ers under the ice, and get a better view of what’sthere,” said Anandakrishnan. “We’re trying to get ahigh-resolution picture, rather than broad brushstrokes.” �

“We’re trying to get a high-resolution picture, rather than broad brush strokes.”

- Sridhar Anandakrishnan, geophysicist

December 10, 2000 The Antarctic Sun • 5

It’s a crowded time at the Pole.Amundsen-Scott South Pole Stationhas reached a record population of morethan 220 people, and will keep its num-bers high for the rest of the season. Thestation’s summer season began Oct. 23,with about 80 people arriving on thefirst flights south.

ConstructionThe high numbers are the result of an

ambitious science and constructionschedule to keep each and every one ofthose bodies busy through the end of thesummer season, in mid-February.Workers spent the winter getting thenew power plant ready to go. Work con-tinues now, and the switch is scheduledto be flipped Jan. 17.

It is an exciting summer for construc-tion as work has begun on the actual“pods” of the new, elevated station. Thefirst pods will house the new food ser-vice/dining and winter berthing rooms.Columns of steel to support the structureare in place, and crews are workingaround the clock on this project. Thecontinuation of the water and sewer tun-nel work (1,800 feet long and 40 feetbelow the surface) is under way, withcompletion scheduled for this summer.The ground shield has also been

installed around the DASI telescope toenhance the sensitivity of the instru-ment. As we continue to receive con-struction materials, a terminal for theGOES/MARISAT project will be built.The project will make use of a satellitesystem to vastly increase the amount ofdata that can travel to and from the Pole.

Poor weather conditions and can-celled flights have affected the deliveryof building materials. As of this week,more than three million pounds of cargoare waiting at McMurdo Station to gosouth.

ScienceIn science news, there is a diverse

collection of groups visiting this season.A group from the Cold RegionsResearch and Engineering Laboratory(CRREL) completed a micrometeoritecollecting campaign in the South PoleRodwell, the main source of potablewater on station. The Rodwell extractswater from the plateau by creating alarge cavity in the ice about 350 feet(107 meters) deep. As the water is melt-ed and pumped out for people to use,micrometeorites that fell into the snowover the past 1,000 years fall to the bot-tom. CRREL developed a robotic vacu-um cleaner that is lowered into the welland collects the tiny particles. Over100,000 micrometeorites were collectedin sizes up to 1 millimeter in diameter.They are fragments of asteroids andmaterial from comets.

RecreationOf course, Pole residents have

squeezed in some recreation as well.South Pole traditions live on, such asFriday night slushies at the Clean AirBuilding, made from the cleanestsnow on earth and blended with achoice of mixers. Yoga sessions takeplace weekly. Athletic prowess (or theidea of it) has been celebrated inSunday football and soccer games.Dart and pool tournaments are upcom-ing. We ate our way throughThanksgiving in marvelous style, withmany on station volunteering extrahours to peel potatoes, bake pies andwash countless dishes. �

South PoleDISPATCHESBy Tracy Sheeley

Sun contributor

The future of the South Pole is beginning to takeshape. Construction crews have put up thecolumns that will support the first pod of the new,elevated station. The silver cylinder on the righthas been nicknamed “the beer can.” It will connectthe station to the sub-surface facilities such as thegarage, power plant and cargo storage area.

� Power plant construction, solar system studies, Friday night slushies

What do you missabout home?

The summer season is about half over.

Highw y1

oonnee

“Privacy. I can deal with justabout everything else here.”

Janice Zellernurse administrator

“A lot of different varieties of chocolate.”

Laura HamiltonFEMC administrator

“The wife, kids,neighbors and

friends. Family-style living”Zellard Lemon

boiler technician

6 • The Antarctic Sun December 10, 2000

Below: Marine biologist andanesthesiologist Paul

Ponganis welcomes guests tohis Penguin Ranch.

Photos by Beth Minneci

The name conjures images of dust swirlingacross dry land, lassos circling overhead andblack and white birds grazing behind woodenfences.

At Penguin Ranch, 20 miles off the coast of RossIsland, in the middle of McMurdo Sound, a dozenemperor penguins live behind a metal pen referred to as"the corral."

A few feet away, behind a window in a warm hut,scientists watch penguins dive through ice holes carvedin the corral floor. With stopwatch, pencil and notebookin hands, the tenacious observers record the habits ofpenguins they've marked with colored tape.

They're looking for clues telling how the birds candive for dizzying periods of time after taking only a sin-gle breath, and just what penguins do while under waterso long.

Emperors, at up to 4 feet and weighing as much as90 pounds, are the largest, strongest and the deepestdiving of the 17 penguin species. They can dive for 22

minutes, to depths of2,000 feet.

The average person, incontrast, can dive about 35 feetwith one breath and stay under forless than a minute, said penguinresearcher Paul Ponganis, who is an anesthesi-ologist in California when he's not studying penguinshere.

At the ranch, the birds typically dive over 12-hourperiods, starting early, with their activity level waningduring the day. By 3 p.m. the penguins are tired and fullfrom eating fish. The hunched birds waddle across thesea ice, flopping in and out of the water. Some lay flatwhere they land on the ice.

“The way they move, they remind me of CharlieChaplain,” said researcher Katherine Ponganis, laugh-ing.

The big-bellied, flightless birds are providing piles ofdata as well as loads of entertainment for the academic

�

�

�

McMurdo Station

Penguin Ranch

Cape Evans

Sea IceIce Shelf

Above: Velcro strips glued to the penguins’ feathers can carry electronic recording instruments that transmit

information about their diving habits.

continued on next page

By Beth MinneciSun staff

Welcome to T H E R A N C H

December 10, 2000 The Antarctic Sun • 7

Left to right: A Crittercam is harnessed to an emperor penguin; penguins between divesat the ranch; Kathy Ponganis records their diving habits in a notebook.

from previous page

Pho

to c

ourt

esy

of D

ave

Leve

nson

audience behind the window.An adoring smile resurfaces on Kathy

Ponganis’ face while she works. “I thinkthey're totally charming.”

To the Ponganises, the penguins’super-athletic ability is scientifically intriguing.

Though the birds appear awkward andslow on the surface, they are frisky andfree underwater, smooth and direct as alaunched torpedo. Their oval body shapeappears to inhibit movement on their feet,but in the water, they use their wings, andmove as fluidly as a bird does in the air.Penguins can swim 23 feet a second andare agile enough to turn right anglesunderwater.

Almost every summer since 1987 PaulPonganis has returned to Antarctica tostudy penguins at the ranch. This year hischemist wife, Katherine, accompaniedhim.

In addition to manual record-keeping,the Ponganises have attached small elec-tronic devices that record body tempera-ture, heart rate and diving depth every sec-ond for up to five days. The instrumentsare about the size of a large Christmasbulb.

They've also harnessed tiny cameras tosome of the penguins. This technologysends underwater scenes to the hut and isa new part of Ponganis’ research.

The camera, named the Crittercam,weights about two pounds, yet is too big toput on birds at sea. The camera wouldslow down the birds in the open ocean,and make them more vulnerable to preda-tors. The ranch is the perfect laboratory.The corral is far enough from the ice edgeto ensure the birds return for air.

In the past, Ponganis had noticed thatpenguins gain 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 pounds in fouror five dives.

“We knew they were eating, but wedidn't know how,” he said. An observationtube lowered 10 feet into the water next tothe corral is a platform from which pen-guins can be seen jumping in and out ofthe water. But researchers weren’t able to

follow the penguins' feeding habits.“The penguins would disappear into

the darkness, that's it,” Paul Ponganis said.This year the Crittercam filmed pen-

guins on the hunt, diving 100 to 175 feet,dashing back to the surface to eat fish, andthen returning to the deep. Just a few feetunder the surface, light shines through theice.

“The penguins appear to be very effi-cient little fish catchers,” Paul Ponganissaid. “They have a very easy time.”

The biggest penguins wear the camera,for about an hour a day. They were trained

with just the harness, then small dummyrecorders. It’s strange to see what lookslike scuba tanks on an aquatic animal. Hesaid the penguins don’t seem to mind theCrittercam. Except for one penguin thatpecked and squawked at its reflection in alens, the penguins don't pay them atten-tion.

“They tolerate it fine,” Paul Ponganissaid.

In the water penguins are vulnerable topredators, such as Orcas and leopardseals, and so primarily dive only to eat.

At the ranch the birds are safe. In thecorral, the penguins lie on the ice just inch-es from the dive hole, unconcerned aboutpredators. Ranch penguins are so at ease,some of them miss the ice when jumpingout of the water, falling back into it.Outside the ranch, penguins will run 20feet away from a dive hole as soon as theyhop out of the water.

“In the open, if they fall back in, they’re

a target for a seal,” he said. “Here, they’vefigured it out.”

The penguins were caught off-guardrecently when a seal popped its headthrough a corral dive hole. The penguinsdidn’t immediately know that the seal wasa Weddell, which won't eat a penguin.

“They just panicked,” Kathy Ponganissaid.

The physiological studies, the secondand ongoing part of Paul Ponganis' work,are particularly interesting to him, a physi-cian and a marine biologist.

The key to diving for long periods, hesaid, is to conserve oxygen or tolerate alack of it. And penguins appear to toleratevery little oxygen.

“These penguins push themselves tolevels where even a healthy person wouldjust pass out,” he said. “I’m interested inhow these birds can push themselves tothis limit. It could someday be relevant tohuman medicine.”

Just before plunging into the water, thepenguins stretch and take big breaths.Human swimmers and divers do that to fillthe body with oxygen.

When penguins swim, their heart ratesare at or below resting rates. In humans,the heart pumps faster with activity topump blood and oxygen to muscles. Ourbodies wouldn’t work otherwise.

“These animals are able to do thingsthey shouldn’t be able to do. It’s things likethat that excite people about the physiolo-gy of diving.”

The Ponganises set up camp in lessthan three weeks in October with birdsthey captured at the ice edge. On Thursdaythe corral was dismantled and the birdswalked away. The Ponganis' peeled theVelcro off the penguins' backs and setthem free. Any leftover glue will shed withthe penguins' feathers in January.

Paul Ponganis will be back at the ranchnext year.

“We still don't have an explanation forwhy they can dive as long as they can,”Paul Ponganis said. �

Ross Island Chronicles

8 • The Antarctic Sun December 10, 2000

By ChicO

ScienceLecture “Local

EnvironmentalImpacts of Scienceand Operations,”McMurdo Station, byAndrew Klein, 8:15p.m., galley

Slide show,“Thailand

and Cambodia,”by Mark Eisinger, 8 p.m., galley

Mardi Gras celebration

continues with parade and ball, starting

at 8 p.m.

10

13

16

Emperor penguins are known for their uniquebreeding cycle and the degree to which themales help out.

The female lays a single egg at the start of winter,in May or June, then walks to eat at the sea, whichcould be 100 miles away. The male stays behind,balancing the egg for 65 days under its warm stom-ach and on top of its feet to prevent the egg fromfreezing. During this time the male doesn’t eat.

To keep warm in temperatures as low as -70F,the male penguins huddle together tightly, mov-ing constantly across the ice. The birds at thecenter of the scrum are pushed out by othersfrom the edges in a slowly circling whirlpool.Inside the huddles, the temperature is muchhigher.

In mid-July, the female returns just before thechick hatches. Then it’s his turn to walk to the openwater to eat.

ATTEN....

HUT!!!! The troops grow

restless, general.

We’re ready to obliterate the enemy.

No more late-nightmovies for you...and what is that?

War booty captured by our reconnaissance

patrol.Does anyone know

what happened to the radio?

11

15Mardi Gras: Kingand Queen selectionand cutting of theKing’s Cake,8 p.m.,Gallagher’s

our Antarctic week

Trivia or Pictionary,8 p.m., Scott Base

12

cold

www.polar.org/antsun

Emperors having chicks

hardfacts

Karaoke, 8 p.m., Gallaghers

December 10, 2000 The Antarctic Sun • 9

McMurdo Station’s main building, 155, suffered apower outage on Monday that took nearly 13 hours tofully restore. A key transformer in the building had failedin the early morning. The piece of equipment, dated 1965,was damaged beyond repair.

“They got their money’s worth out of it, but it was asignificant failure,” said power and water plant supervisorAllen Richter. He got the call while he was in the showerand ran to the plant so quickly his wet hair froze on theway.

Because all electricity for the building had coursedthrough the failed piece of equipment, linemen weren’table to restore power until they could bring another trans-former online. They were able to use a temporary, outsideunit, which is not a full replacement, but continues to dothe job.

The outage hit 155 hardest, but it affected other loca-tions as well. When the failure first occurred, an electricalsurge tripped circuit breakers at the power plant. As aresult, power to other buildings, including dorms, alsowent out. The loss was brief, but enough to reset a lot ofelectronic alarm clocks, and cause some people to over-sleep.

The biggest impact of the outage took place in the din-ing facility, which still had to feed nearly 900 people with-out the aid of electricity. Emergency lights went dark afterabout an hour, when their batteries were drained. Cooksand dining attendants worked with meals that required lessenergy.

A small generator helped supply replacement lighting,and a coincidence in meal planning lessened the impact ofthe blackout.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal. Our menu that day hap-pened to make it easy to make the switch,” said productioncook Laura Belval. Free meals for everyone at the BurgerBar also softened the blow.

Another failure hit 155 Friday, but was unrelated. Anair valve in one of the generators malfunctioned, shuttingdown the engine. A standby generator was online six min-utes later. �

Eric "Homer" Holm, left, and Mark “Commander” Melcon installthe insulated floor of a new building at Lower Erebus Hut, about11,500 feet in elevation. The top of Mt. Erebus spews gas andvapor in the distance. The crew of three (including BoBaumgartner, not pictured) spent several days acclimatizing at alower point on the volcano before starting the high-altitude con-struction. Photo by Josh Landis.

1:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the dining facility.Artists who want to participate should contact Nancy Farrell at

farrelna@mcmurdo.gov

Sun., Dec. 17The 15th Ross Island Art Show

Power struggleTwo electricity failures hit 155 in one week

10 • The Antarctic Sun December 10, 2000

SkuaSkuaSkua(the verb)By Kristan Hutchison SabbatiniSpecial to the Sun

When Janet Huddleston wants a newpair of shoes, she checks the trash.That's where she found the bright red

boots she wears with jeans and a lavender shirt.“Everything I’m wearing is skua, except my

underwear and my jewelry,” Huddleston said.“I do have limits. Underwear only in the pack-age.”

Dumpster diving is a long tradition atMcMurdo, going back before waste manage-ment set up separate “skua” bins for items thatcan be reused. Along the way the practice tookon the name of the scavenging gull.

Here, there's none of the stigma associatedwith Dumpster diving in the United States.Instead, people take pride in their ability toskua. Huddleston has a reputation as a skuafairy.

“People will come up to me with a wishlist,” she said. “Within a week I'll usually haveit for them, because I'll be looking for it.”

For herself, Huddleston mostly skuasclothes and stationary, though the dishes,humidifier, shelf, hooks and chair cover in herroom were all skua items. Four of her ten pairsof shoes came from skua shopping, too.

At Skua Central, a 10 by 20 foot buildingwhere all the items are stored, a logbook reportsthe treasures people have found: shirts, table-cloths, pillows, wrapping paper, teddy bears,Christmas trees, spices, stereo speakers, maps,charts, bubble wrap….

“Last year it saved our lives,” said BessWard, a scientist working in the Dry Valley.Five people on her team forgot to bring towels,but found them at Skua Central.

“That was very, very useful to know about,”Ward said.

General assistant Lynn Keating also skuaedsome necessary equipment – a sturdy pair ofwork boots.

“I've been looking 'cause the boots I broughtwere awful,” Keating said. “I kind of thought itwas a hopeless effort. I couldn't believe it, butthey were my size.”

Solid waste supervisor Bill Poulson hasseen working televisions, stereo systems andtypewriters, but cheaper items are more com-mon.

So are the seamy.“Smut is very popular,” Poulson said. “We

put out probably 300 magazines at Winfly.”Waste management staff convinced the

National Science Foundation to set aside build-ing 122 for a free exchange of used items in1995, Poulson said. The staff painted it a brightrainbow of purple, red, orange and yellow.

Before that, waste management employeeswould just hold on to stuff that seemed toogood to throw away.

They still do; the best things never make itto Skua Central.

Having first dibs on castaways is definitelya perk of a janitor's job, said lead janitor DeeMiller. She finds items before they've evenreached the trash, abandoned in empty roomsby people who left the ice.

“The best that I've found was a triple downwhite comforter for my bed, flannel sheets anda blow up air guitar,” she said

For non-janitors, the secret to skua huntingis to know when and where to look, and then tolook often. Most of the best items are found attransition times, when seasonal workers areleaving and others are arriving. People on theirway out of McMurdo pile things they don'twant in the dorm halls. That's when Huddlestongoes skua hunting every night, wanderingthrough the dorms. By the time stuff gets toSkua Central, it's been pretty picked over,Huddleston said.

Jess Barr, another scavenging pro, agreesthat the key is to go “straight to the bins,because then nobody's gone through it yet.There's a whole chain of command on goingthrough skua.”

For Barr, skua satisfies the urge to shop. Athome she frequents second-hand clothing bou-tiques. Last summer she depended on skua toadd glamour to the utilitarian wardrobe she'dpacked.

“I just lived off it. I couldn't even go nearthat building without coming out with a newwardrobe,” said Barr, a field coordinator. “It's tofulfill the need for acquiring goods.”

Like Huddleston, Barr sometimes skuaedfor others. When a friend needed runningshoes, she was able to bring him six pairs.

That's six pairs of shoes that might other-wise have been shipped to Washington, wherethe rest of the trash is disposed. Huddleston getssatisfaction from saving items from a wastefuldemise. She even sends skuaed items home atthe end of the season. Many people put thingsback in skua for the next person, though, recy-cling the stuff yet one more time. After travel-ing in third world countries and seeing howthey reuse everything, even turning soda cansinto toys, Huddleston's become more sensitiveto the wastefulness of Americans and is evenphilosophical about her pastime.

“People throw things away, but when youthink about it there is no ‘away’. It's got to gosomewhere,” she said. �

December 10, 2000 The Antarctic Sun • 11

Imagine, after 43 years, I stillhave dreams of flying over theAntarctic. I seem to be takingoff from that old ice runway,

struggling to gain altitude becausethe aircraft is overloaded. I am soonable to clear the white island directlyahead of us by just a few feet. Fromthere I am coasting southward withthe mountains and glaciers on myright and a sea of blinding ice ahead.

It all seems real, except that myfeet are warm, something that neverhappened back in ’56 and ’57. Theold R4D-5's (C-47's) assigned to oursquadron (VX-6) were neverdesigned for the deep cold we facedover the Antarctic ice. They hadbeen improved somewhat at aJacksonville aircraft repair facilitywith heaters that made the cabin airtemperatures reasonably warm, butthe floors of the aircraft were alu-minum, and were connected directlyto the outside metal of the aircraft.The cold penetrated through ourshoes, causing us constant pain inour feet.

Next to being cold and in painwhen airborne, the next thing thatmade Antarctic flying difficult wasthe extreme length of some flights.Round trips to the South Pole tookabout eight hours, but sometimes wewere diverted to Little America topick up mail, adding another four

hours to our flying time. Sometimeswhen operating out of Little AmericaFive we would fly from breakfasttime until two or three in the morn-ing, with short crew rest breakswhile the aircraft was being refueled.When the weather was good, themain limit to our flying hours wasthe ability of flight crews to keepgoing.

In most parts of the world humanson the ground maintain radio contactwith airborne flight crews and searchand rescue teams are ready to bringhelp if a crash occurs. I am frequent-ly amazed that during so many of ourpolar flights, when we were 400 to800 miles from anyone who mighthelp us, our only contact with ourhome base hung on that noisy shortwave radio signal and the skill of ourradioman who transmitted all ourmessages in Morse Code.

One time we couldn't get back toour home base because of badweather and were forced to land onthe ice cap. We spent 18 hours inthat windy and minus 35F coldbefore an aircraft was able to find usand refuel our plane. We found thatwe could cope with the cold, but ittook a toll on our bodies. A fewmore days would have made us des-perate.

To sum it all up, I guess that myAntarctic experiences have left anindelible mark on my psychebecause even after all these yearsthe memories still invade mydreams. I am still able to soar overthat Antarctic plain, view scenerygrander than anywhere else onearth and even land where nohuman has ever set foot. I can do allthis, and still have warm feetbeneath me. �

’50s era pilot still dreams ofmountains Sea FFllyyiinngg

Perspectives Perspectives

James Waldron served in Operation Deep Freeze II and III as a lieutenant commander in the Navy.

glaciersThe author at his officedesk in Little America Vduring the winter months ofhis 1956-1957 deployment.Photo courtesy of Jim Waldron.

12 • The Antarctic Sun December 10, 2000

Profile

With four words MadisonHall tells why he workswinters and prefersworking nights anytime of the year. “Lesspeople. Less hassles.”

Hall, 61, works 12-hour night shiftsalone at the power plant, an example ofhis independence. But he’s also a verysocial person, as anyone who has everspoken to him knows.

Each hour, Hall monitors a room inwhich the numbing rumble of 16-cylin-der engines drowns out all other sounds.He checks the oil, pressures and temper-atures of five truck-size engines andwatches gauges on ceiling-high pipes.

Outside of the engine room, nightsare usually quiet.

Except when something breaks.The pace became hectic Monday

when a transformer died and shut downpower in the galley and in the rest of thestation's central building.

The power failure happened at theend of Hall's shift. “You can sit aroundfor 11 hours and 45 minutes and noth-ing, then there's 15 minutes of terror,” hesaid, describing some nights.

Many nights Hall reads throughbooks about one of his hobbies:paragliding, skiing, ham radio andAmerican and Antarctic history.

“Madison is a pretty well-roundedindividual,” said his boss, Al Richter.

Hall helped start the McMurdoHistorical Society and is a member ofthe New Zealand Antarctic Societyand contributes stories to the Society'sjournal.

Hall met one of his heroes when hevisited Sir Edmund Hillary at hisAuckland home to interview him aboutthe start of Scott Base in 1955.

“I was so very happy to meet theman. He's a very gentle man who makesyou feel at ease. I called him Sir Edmund

Hillary. He said, ‘Just call me Ed.’”For the New Zealand society's maga-

zine, Hall has written articles about cur-rent life on the Ice.

He said he prefers working full-yearcontracts over seasonal because it allowshim to save more money. And he likesworking winters.

The winter in Antarctica isn't the des-titute place that people who haven't livedit might imagine, Hall said. WhenMcMurdo Station's population shrinksfrom about 1,000 to 150 or 200, peopledevelop close friendships. Only a fewwithdraw, said Hall, who likes cam-raderie and the solitude winter giveshim. “It seems like you get more workdone in the winter.”

One winter, he volunteered to helpcharter a McMurdo Station Toastmaster'sInternational Club. He didn't know exact-ly what the club was about, but joinedbecause it offered something new. “Allthe other clubs around here had some-thing to do with drinking.”

The club has made the soft-spokenman become comfortable and morearticulate in front of groups, he said.

Hall remembers that before airplanedrops were discontinued in 1995, Julywas a winter high point. Residentswould celebrate, bringing out aChristmas tree, lights, decorations,singing carols and dressing in costumes.“We even would have a gift exchange.”

In the last several years, Hall said,McMurdo's atmosphere has shifted fromclose to rough to approaching refined.

Recently he awoke to what soundedlike an animal scratching a dorm wall. Ajanitor was scrubbing a decal off a door.

“Sanitizing. That's what's happening.Sanitizing is a good word for it.”

Hall said he's not complaining,just observing some changes that he

has noticed.“It used to be like a construction

camp, with a lot more parties, a lot morefights, fewer women.” More womensoftened McMurdo, he said, which isOK, if you ask him. “I think women arethe best thing that God ever made, andyou can quote me on that.”

Hall moved to Colorado from Ohioin 1982 to escape a slump in Akron's jobmarket. In Denver, construction workwasn’t hard to find. A few years later,tired of building things, he took a jobwith a water and sewage treatmentplant.

In 1991, he became a general assistantin Antarctica, working his way up to theutilities department, the water plant andfinally, the power plant in 1996.

During his first interview with theAntarctic Program, he gave three rea-sons for wanting the job: adventure,travel and money. He hopes to retire insix years, so his priorities are nowmoney, then adventure and travel.

He plans to move back to Akronwhen he’s not in Antarctica, to be nearhis children. But he feels drawn to theIce, too.

The works quietly and competently.Until the lights go out, people don't con-sider that someone is there to keep theelectricity on all night, Richter said.

“It's a lot of responsibility,” he said.“By working by himself, he has to beable to deal with anything that may arise.He’s got to know what he’s doing.”

You've also got to have patience anda sense of humor. When the electricityfails, people call the power plant to letthem know. But at the plant, instrumentpanels have already indicated whensomething is coming. �

Madison Hall

watchmanNight

By Beth MinneciSun staff