The day I got paid to ride in a helicopter and take pictures.
PASSCAL is supporting an experiment called the Erebus Backbone Network next season. This will involve installing 5 sites around the summit of Erebus (4 of these will be upgrading the existing sites we visited this year), and 3 sites around the perimeter. The perimeter sites will be at Cape Bird, Cape Royds, and Terra Nova nunatak.
We scouted out Cape Bird already, so the goal on Saturday was to fly over the proposed Cape Royds and Terra Nova locations to take pictures and determine the best locations to install our seismic stations next season.
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A boondoggler went along with us (he is preparing to winter over this season and needed a chance to get out)! Avi is unpictured in the front seat (he had the better camera).
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We flew out to Terra Nova first, because the lighting gets flat there later in the day, and the helicopter pilot (Nick) preferred being able to see to not being able to see. This was a cool flight because we flew right between Erebus and Terror, over part of the island I hadn't been to yet.
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Terra Nova is right in-between Mt. Erebus and Mt. Terror. Map from Wikipedia, again.
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A view up the east side of Erebus.
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We made a few circles around a nunatak on Terra Nova, looking for reasonably flat locations to install a seismic sensor. We also got Nick's feedback on where he'd feel comfortable landing a helicopter or dropping off a sling load.
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Terra Nova nunatak, with Cape Bird seen in the distance.
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Looking north. Most of the sea ice has broken up (a few weeks ago, all this ocean was white).
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We decided this flat sloped part on top was too steep to land a helicopter or install our system. Instead, we'll install our site next season at the base, next to the snow line.
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Then we headed off around the north side of the island towards Cape Royds.
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North side of Erebus. There's not as much snow here (likely from high winds blowing it off).
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Cape Royds is by far the best location for a seismic site that I've seen during our trips to Erebus -- nice and flat, with plenty of compacted rock for drilling a borehole (the project next season might require drilling holes for the seismometers).
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Looking west. Nice flat rock for our site, with plenty of places for the helicopter to land.
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Looking southwest. You can see the Trans-Antarctic mountains in the background.
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Then we flew back to McMurdo! A short and sweet trip. I cannot believe that I was paid to take a nice helicopter ride around Erebus and take pictures. But this information will be really important for us as we start to prepare for next season back at PASSCAL.
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Erebus on the flight back to McMurdo.
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The tanker docked at the ice pier, with the icebreaker in the background.
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In other news..... we got freshies! A C-17 plane landed earlier this week with Cohort 5, the group of people who will keep McMurdo running through the winter. Along with the people, it brought fresh food -- we got eggs, apples, and spinach! The whole galley sounded so happy -- it's been almost 2 months since I've had any fresh fruit or veggies.
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Salad!!! Bananas!!!! I could feel the scurvy receding from my gums.
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