Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 11/13/2012 - 04:48
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Antarctic Sub Glacial Lake and Stream Studies

We just read your journal entries and enjoyed the class discussion.

Is there a medical student on board? Who is the most interesting person you met so far and why? Do you have open campfires? Have you ridden a snowmobile? What do you do in your free time? Have you gone ice fishing?

Look forward to hearing back from you. We miss you.

Tue, 11/13/2012 - 11:47

Mike LeBaron

Hi everyone. I hope you are having a good time with Ms. Prince. Thanks for keeping up with the project and sending in some questions.We don't have a medical student in the team. There are doctors here in McMurdo to take care of the staff and scientists that are here. We do have a doctoral student who is working on his phD in Geology on the team.
The most interesting person - that's tough because everyone here seems to have a story and comes from a very interesting background. Let me give you a few examples. My current roommate is from Iceland and is a mountaineer. His job is to help guide one of the science teams across the glacier they are studying and keep them safe. Glaciers have crevasses (large cracks) that are very deep. Eaner will be helping the science team on the Pine Island Glacier project (referred to as PIG). There's also Dr. Ken Sims, a geologist from the University of Wyoming. He's been on National Geographics Man vs Volcano show. Dr. Ross Powell who I'm working with, is also a great source of Antarctic information. This is his 14th trip to the ice. He's a native of New Zealand so he also was good with information about New Zealand when we went through there.
We haven't had any campfires - the only wood down here is from old crates or pallets - no trees for thousands of miles!
I haven't ridden a snowmobile. If your project requires use of a snowmobile you get trained on them, but so far ours has not needed one.
I haven't gone ice fishing either. The ice over the ocean is 6-8 feet thick. Some of the researchers do fish studies in the ocean and they have fish huts that they fish from to get specimens to study. One of the fish that is being studied is the Antarctic Tooth Fish. It's a bit fish that commonly weighs 60-100 pounds. It's being commercially exploited by fishing ships here and there is a lot of concern that it will be over-fished and become endangered. You may have eaten it as Chilean Sea Bass. It's very good, but is one species that probably should not be taken from the oceans and eaten.
In my free time I hike around the station or talk to people who are down here either working at McMurdo or doing scientific research. There are a number of hiking trails around town and some longer trails that go out onto the hills further from town. So far I haven't had any trouble keeping busy.
Keep reading the journal entries and following along. Be good!
Mr. LeBaron