Antarctica

This book is a must read for the curreent Antarctic state-of-mind

-- Elvis Telecom, Thursday, 22 March 2007 23:52 (5 months ago) Bookmark Link

I read the rest of this book after reading this thread. It is great. I have now subscribed to this RSS feed: http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/employment/.

Also, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz2SeEzxMuE = Whoa.

Also, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz2SeEzxMuE = Whoa.

Bloody hell, it's like opening the hatch of a spaceship in deep space.

i just saw werner herzog's new movie about antarctica. it's called encounters at the end of the world. some cool stuff in there.

ooh. i want to see that.

a few weeks ago i ran into a friend i hadn't seen for a while. we were talking and he told me he'd gone to antartica earlier in the year, or at the end of last year, i don't remember, but he'd gone to argentina and then taken a huge boat for two and a half days through rough seas. most of the people on board spent the entire time wanting to die but he was fine he said b/c of all the halfpipe/vert stuff he'd done when younger. by the time they got to antartica all anyone could talk about was icebergs though.

just read that, based on recommendations--pretty damn good

the bureaucratic nightmare stuff started to piss me off too much, though

Oopsy.

That link just comes back here. Perhaps that is what you meant by 'oopsy'?

Isn't tourism to the polar regions irresponsible?

Hahah, you're right at that, Alex. Here's the real link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/world/americas/24ship.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

When I read that I thought, "Oh damn. Hey, it would be neat to be crew on one of those ships."

I was on that same boat 3 years ago, in the Canadian Artic! Wierd to see it sunk. It seemed solid enough at the time.

They're pretty cool trips, in these smallish boats. They bring along historians, geologists, etc, to give lectures. Some of the folks on the trip I was on had been on the same boat to Antartica before, and said the Drake Passage was pretty hairy.

As to whether tourism in the polar regions is irresponsible, that's a good question.

No drunken brawling or we're kicking you off the continent! Oh very well...

One of my favorite things in Powell's is the Arctic/Antarctic shelves, because all the spines are blue and it's a really odd visual effect.

I know someone who went to Antarctica and wrote a book on it, but I don't know him well, in that I didn't get a free copy of his book.

They do particle physics down there these days. Here's the ongoing diary of one of the grad students working there, published on the Economist website this week:

http://www.economist.com/daily/diary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10711348

Meanwhile, my PhD office in a 60s tower block in south east England has no windows.

i wonder if i will ever visit antarctica
-- s1ocki, Thursday, March 22, 2007 6:11 PM (10 months ago) Bookmark Link

i want to go skiing and/or climbing on the peninsula

an acquaintance just went, but i haven't seen him since his return

From Unusual facilities for employees

in antarctica they had all kinds of crazy shit set up--bars, music rooms, a coffee house--but that was more about us being stuck there than the jobs.

we have pilates classes at my work now. you still get paid but it costs $50 so it doesn't exactly even out.

-- jergïns, Tuesday, 19 February 2008 23:17 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

jergins you lived in antarctica???? did you "over-winter?"

i just read some website about living in antarctica. it was pretty funny! sounds like there was a lot of shenanigans down there. most of the stories sounded like college and/or being a ski bum

-- gbx, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 00:00 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

just one summer. yeah, lots of shenanigans, but also 54 hour work weeks. people drank a LOT. and crossdressed a lot. that was a work perk: anything anyone brought down there got left there, so we had a fine choice of wigs and halloween costumes.

-- jergïns, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 00:02 (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

SYDNEY, Australia - Scientists investigating the icy waters of Antarctica said Tuesday they have collected mysterious creatures including giant sea spiders and huge worms in the murky depths.

Australian experts taking part in an international program to take a census of marine life in the ocean at the far south of the world collected specimens from up to 6,500 feet beneath the surface, and said many may never have been seen before.

Some of the animals far under the sea grow to unusually large sizes, a phenomenon called gigantism that scientists still do not fully understand.

"Gigantism is very common in Antarctic waters," Martin Riddle, the Australian Antarctic Division scientist who led the expedition, said in a statement. "We have collected huge worms, giant crustaceans and sea spiders the size of dinner plates."

The specimens were being sent to universities and museums around the world for identification, tissue sampling and DNA studies.

"Not all of the creatures that we found could be identified and it is very likely that some new species will be recorded as a result of these voyages," said Graham Hosie, head of the census project.

The expedition is part of an ambitious international effort to map life forms in the Antarctic Ocean, also known as the Southern Ocean, and to study the impact of forces such as climate change on the undersea environment.

Three ships - Aurora Australis from Australia, France's L'Astrolabe and Japan's Umitaka Maru - returned recently from two months in the region as part of the Collaborative East Antarctic Marine Census. The work is part of a larger project to map the biodiversity of the world's oceans.

The French and Japanese ships sought specimens from the mid- and upper-level environment, while the Australian ship plumbed deeper waters with remote-controlled cameras.

"In some places every inch of the sea floor is covered in life," Riddle said. "In other places we can see deep scars and gouges where icebergs scour the sea floor as they pass by."

Among the bizarre-looking creatures the scientists spotted were tunicates, plankton-eating animals that resemble slender glass structures up to a yard tall "standing in fields like poppies," Riddle said.

Other animals were equally baffling.

"They had fins in various places, they had funny dangly bits around their mouths," Riddle told reporters. "They were all bottom dwellers so they were all evolved in different ways to live down on the sea bed in the dark. So many of them had very large eyes - very strange looking fish."

Scientists are planning a follow-up expedition in 10 to 15 years to examine the effects of climate changes on the region's environment.

JPGs of giant sea spiders?

OK, ugh

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f325/caek/PBB00149.jpg

i just saw werner herzog's new movie about antarctica. it's called encounters at the end of the world. some cool stuff in there.

-- s1ocki, Wednesday, 12 September 2007 06:17 (6 months ago) Bookmark Link

Opens june 11.

The galley at the South Pole, 1975

http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/history/constgalley1.jpg

1979

http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/history/galley791a.jpg

first picture looks like something out of LOST

More amazing photos: http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/trivia.html

sounds great fun:

http://www.thehousenextdooronline.com/2008/06/great-ecstasy-of-icecarver-werner.html

this is one of my favorite threads ever.

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc275/thehousenextdoor/2008/Movie%20Reviews/Encounters%20at%20the%20End%20of%20the%20World%20Rizov/EncountersAtTheEndOfTheWorld_scene0.jpg

http://www.apple.com/trailers/thinkfilm/encountersattheendoftheworld/trailer/

Encounters at the End of the World was so good. just interviewing all of the random people from all over the globe that end up there was v fascinating. the spooky minimal wildlife stuff was interesting as well. like when they are listening to the seals under the ice and it sounds like the most insane synthesizer filters. the place looks otherworldly beautiful - the cathedrals of ice sculptures reflecting light underneath the vast frozen seas, the crystal caves, the blinding force of the winds, the extremophiles that survive without oxygen, sunlight, or carbon. its all so extra-terrestrial!

Extremophiles are the ultimate adventurers. These organisms thrive where other microbes don’t dare venture: boiling water holes, freezing lakes, and toxic waste dumps.

Now, researchers have sequenced the genomes of two extremophiles that love life extremely cold. They live at the bottom of Ace Lake in Antarctica, where there is no oxygen and the average temperature is a brutal 33 degrees Fahrenheit.

The two organisms, called Methanogenium frigidum and Methanococcoides burtonii, produce methane and are known as methanogens.

Methanogens are unique among organisms in their ability to survive a wide range of temperatures, from the freezing point of water to 185 degrees Fahrenheit and everything in between.

In a new study, scientists sequenced the genomes of M. frigidum and M. burtonii and compared their genomes with those of heat-loving methanogens to identify features that may help these microbes adapt to their cold surroundings.

Some of these hardy organisms also live in oxygen-starved environments, without sunlight or carbon, and scientists believe that studying these microbes could reveal the boundaries of extreme environments that support life here on Earth and on other planets.

---

So what if Earth isn’t the only place these kinds of microbes live?

Some scientists speculate that methanogens could provide clues to life on other planets, such as Mars, and Europa (Jupiter’s sixth moon).

Evidence suggests that beneath the icy surface of Europa, there may be subsurface oceans that could support extremophiles like M. frigidum. The Antarctic lakes of the Vestfold Hills and their hardy inhabitants may, in some way, resemble the environment on Europa.

Other research suggests that some methanogens could survive life on Mars. Scientists at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville have grown methanogens in Mars-like soil and under Mars-like conditions.

After the Viking voyages to Mars in the 1970s turned up no trace of life, as we knew it, some scientists dismissed the idea of Martian life. Twenty years later, with the discovery of organisms that can survive without oxygen, carbon, or sunlight, researchers are rethinking the boundaries of what environments may support life.

http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/07_03/extremo.shtml

i find this page extremely poignant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rivers_of_Antarctica

karl malone you should read the worst journey in the world

http://www.southpolestation.com/news/nicholas1.jpg

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/earshot/antarctica-big-dead-place/9662158

via the best blog (but CW weirdly glib description of suicide)

http://www.southpolestation.com/news/news.html

Nicholas JohnsonA bit of iconic history, otherwise elsewhere described as the "WikiLeaks of Antarctica..." is the iconic book Big Dead Place. Author Nicholas Johnson, unfortunately, is no longer with us after he blew his brains out in 2012, but his work survives. And his work has now been given a new lease on life. On 30 April, ABC's program Earshot aired a 30-minute podcast/download which describes and details Nicholas's work, life, and the rest of his story. The interview and accompanying web pages include the voices and photos of several friends. Two ABC links of interest: this page gives basic information about the episode along with links for listening to or downloading the story...and this page gives additional background information as well as more photos. But that is not all. Nicholas' sister worked to get THE BIG DEAD PLACE WEBSITE back up to coincide with the release of this documentary. Have a look! Not everything is there, but there is a lot of the good stuff. The photo of Nicolas at left shows him at work in the McMurdo waste barn in about 2001...it's from Kathy Blumm and used by permission.

great book; didn't know about the suicide (although it's . . . not exactly shocking)

(but CW weirdly glib description of suicide)

oddly, the place where i first learned about his death described it in the same way: http://feralhouse.com/nick-johnson-rip/
maybe it was an inside joke, or perhaps just a way of addressing it that seemed in keeping with his style of writing. i'm not sure.

the earshot episode was good, although i didn't really like whoever was reading in the voice of nicholas johnson. reminded me of the old iron chefs with the english dubs

Thanks for the link. Weird personal trivia.... my copy of Big Dead Place has actually been to Antarctica. Haven't been there yet.

Thank you all for suggesting Big Dead Place. It's Rivethead... On Ice!

good account https://twitter.com/HotWaterOnIce

https://twitter.com/SPtelescope is good too.

if you read this thread you've probably already seen this, but just in case:

https://idlewords.com/2019/07/the_stranding_of_the_mv_shokalskiy.htm

that was excellent, thanks

Just finished Barry Lopez’ big memoir, “Horizon” in which he kinda ties things up with a big section that takes place in Antarctica. Recommended and the other sections are cool too (Arctic, Australia, Galapagos and Rift Valley).

"His memoir, with the unfortunately Dairy Queenish title Home of the Blizzard,"

i died

good blog https://brr.fyi/

My mom just got back. Her tl;dr was that it was a good trip but given the effort to get there nothing she would want to do again. She said the Drake Passage was just as terrible as everyone said, and that's basically a couple of days on either end of your limited visit to Antarctica proper, which she said was, besides cold, a lot windier than she expected. She was, however, impressed at how accessible the visit apparently is, however restricted the number of visitors (and cost) may be. Everyone from nonagenarians to Donna Shalala.

i just got done listening to _the worst journey in the world_. i had just given the book to a fellow outdoors person, and since my reading strength is not quite up to par since tbi, i figured i’d listen, to see how it went. it quickly sorta took me over. and there are long sections i’ve relistened to.

that is the most memorable and completely overwhelming book i’ve experienced. i feel like i could discuss it for hours and not really hit a same topic twice. also a fantastic narration, at least to me.

Was it Hugh Grant? (That may sound flippant but when he was just starting out getting roles in the 80s, he played Cherry-Garrard in the miniseries adaptation of The Last Place on Earth.)

Somebody named Simon Vance, a name I do not recognize offhand.

Ah, Vance! I've had the pleasure to meet him briefly after a talk he gave (with Guy Gavriel Kay, an author favorite of mine). I don't follow his recorded books work much but he has a massive, massive rep in the field, and he's a pleasant fellow. I'll have to pass that on to the folks I know who introduced me to his work.

the book is widely considered the best ever written about an antarctic expedition by one of the participants

ha ned that's wild. he is very very good. i expect most of the british accents of the original party were not too extremely far apart, but it is pretty clear when he is narrating say, scott's journal, rather than one of the seamen's, or even bowers's.

i've looked v briefly at readers commentaries. a couple of them complained of cherry-gerard's inclusion/melding of various participants' journals. i cannot disagree more, they are grafted in beautifully, are clearly distinguished, and add fantastic details. and this tale is one of almost innumerable details-- ones that blow my goddamn mind. amongst the many stories detailing the torturous lives of the ponies there is one in which one weakening pony has his hind quarters fall through the ice adjacent to a pod of taunting orcas the entire dilemma is just riveting.

Simon Vance does audiobook work regularly, I think. He read the Stieg Larsson trilogy.

He's done a lot of good books (which obviously excludes Larsson), and reads them really well.

the brr.fyi guy made it back home

"the many stories detailing the torturous lives of the ponies"

you get more of a sense of the character of Weary Willie than the humans at times, he's the only one sensibly saying fuck this nonsense, albeit through passive resistance. The passages from other fellow expeditionists journals definitely enhance the story. I can't remember whose journal it was, but there was a bit that made me chuckle that was butthurt at the positive advance of Amundsen's expedition party, and commenting that they have brought a good supply of potatoes with them he noted: "there must be a renegade Irishman amongst them".

ac-g’s slow boil fury at bureaucracy in his egg delivery to british museum or whatever showed v some amusing restraint, eh.

at least back the 1910's the explorer classes viewed orcas as the deadly predators they are, none of this anthropomorphic hippy shit about swimming with them, they knew that at times it only took one fateful misstep onto some fragile sea ice and they were lunch.

Vance’s recitation of this parody poem really is a delight:

THE PROTOPLASMIC CYCLE
Big floes have little floes all around about ’em, And all the yellow diatoms couldn’t do without ’em.
Forty million shrimplets feed upon the latter, And they make the penguin and the seals and whales
Much fatter.
Along comes the Orca and kills these down below, While up above the Afterguard attack them on the floe:
And if a sailor tumbles in and stoves the mushy pack in, He’s crumpled up between the floes, and so they get their whack in.
Then there’s no doubt he soon becomes a patent fertilizer, invigorating diatoms, although they’re none the wiser,
So the protoplasm passes on its never-ceasing round, Like a huge recurring decimal … to which no end is found.

From “The Antarctic Exploration Anthology: The Personal Accounts of the Great Antarctic Explorers (Bybliotech Discovery Book 1)” by Ernest Shackleton, Robert Falcon Scott, Roald Amundsen, Douglas Mawson, Apsley Cherry-Garrard)