Science Sunday!!!!

Hey Guys, sorry I have not been posting this past week. My poor Olympus digital camera died; well, the flash did. Since I am at the end of the world, there are no camera repair shops around. And I don't trust those penguins with my camera! But I am not worried, I have had that camera for 5 years, and unfortunately 4 Mega-Pixels just isn't what it used to be. I ordered a new camera, and it should be coming down here soon. Thanks Mom for shipping down here!!! I wouldn't be too worried, I can still take photo's outside, since it is daylight here 24/7. But, its kind of annoying to have a flash that doesn't work properly. When the new camera comes, its going to have some wicked cool features that I think you all will enjoy. So until then, I'll post as often as I can, but the next couple of posts may not be as "pic" heavy as they were earlier. Sorry in advance.
So work hasn't been too bad. There have been a ton of C-17 flights because the ice runway is going to close for the summer season. To keep the ice runway safe, to my understanding, they close it mid-december so that the heavy planes (C-17's) don't erode the ice. This means a lot more work for cargo, fleet operations, and of course the Fire Department. But, the best part about all the flights, is that mail and other supplies are coming to the base wicked fast. I heard that there was a pallet and a half of mail dropped off the other day. Pa and Stella I got your card, Thanks a bunch! The weather hasn't been to bad here, though I did get to witness a little bit of a snow storm earlier in the week. It got so bad at Willy Airfield that several planes had to make emergency landings at Pegasus. It was very cool to see a C-130 land next to a C-17. The size difference is amazing, as you can see in the picture. You could fit a C-130, minus the wings, inside a C-17 no problem.
So one of the other duties that the Fire Department does down here besides ARFF stand-bys and fire suppression, is fire inspections. Since this is the driest place on earth, fire inspections and prevention is taken very serious. Every Day a different building or several buildings are inspected to make sure that everything is up to code. We also inspect the hydrants as well. I believe I went over that procedure earlier in the blog, but I may go over at a later date, if there are requests for it. There are most likely more than 1,000 fire extinguishers here on base and they all have to be checked monthly. Shout out to Dan, Dayton, Tower and Chris Lundquist...you guys would be pulling bank here... if Billy Sweet ran this place (Thank God he doesn't!)
is the building 001, because it is essentially the reason why everyone is here. It is the building in the picture to the left, that is split up to 3 parts. You may have heard of But back to the story: I had the opportunity to inspect the Crary Building this weekend. CraryCrary in the news; it is where the infamous Antarctic Ice Core project is ran. The Crary Lab is also the same size as one of the other US bases, Palmer Station. They don't have a fire department, suckers.

There are several major freezers, all set to various temperatures bellow freezing so that scientists can preform such experiments as the Ice Core project, without interference of the temperature change. It is very funny to see people walk around the labs in their bunny boots and other ECW gear. Roughly, 800 different scientists pass through McMurdo a year. Crary is a very large building, split up into three phases as I mentioned before, and it houses all the scientific research done here at McMurdo and the surrounding base camps. The first phase, is mostly biology/chemistry/physics labs. They have two rooms, known as "Scary Crary", which is where all the chemicals are stored.
Don't worry, it sounds worse than it actually is. Most College/Universities carry more chemicals than down here. You can thank the Antarctic Treaty for that, and its a good thing. The research down here isn't affected negatively by the treaty, and I'm not trying spin it that way either. In my opinion, as a firefighter, the less chemicals I have to deal with, the better. I'm sure that's a feeling shared by my entire crew as well.
The Phase II of the building is mostly comprised of Geology labs and electronic labs. There is a live camera set up to Mt. Erebus, and it monitors the activity. The Mr. Erebus project is one of the coolest, because Mt. Erebus is one of three active volcano's that has a pool of liquid hot magma constantly moving. Most volcano's the magma hardens until an eruption, but since Erebus is constantly erupting it can't be contained. If that isn't awesome, I don't know what is. There are several shelters that the scientists live in when they are out in the field studying the volcano. Though, the highest camp was recently abandoned. There was something about lava bombs the size of small cars landing near the shelter, because of a rather big eruption. Keep in mind its launching these bombs from 400 meters down, then more than a couple hundred meters down the side of the volcano. Not bad, eh? But I'm in no danger down here, the volcano can't muster up enough pressure to pull a "Pompeii" on McMurdo. And who says I didn't learn anything from Dover-Sherborn?
Now, the really cool project that everyone is looking forward to is the LDB facility, is the only scientific facility that is on Willy Field. I am only generalizing it as a scientific facility, because what it really is, is a hanger. The LDB, is short for "Long Duration Balloon". Picture a weather balloon, on steroids. These big guys are launched roughly mid-December and float around the continent gathering scientific data. Mostly the data has been about Space, shout out to my best friend and space camp graduate Scott Schlesinger. The balloons float around the continent due to a phenomenon known as the "Polar Vortex", which sounds wicked awesome no? The Vortex, is an upper atmospheric wind that travels around the continent for only a couple weeks. It allows a balloon to never leave the ice and to float around the entire continent in 10 days. I know what you are saying "Phil, 10 days...how big is Antarctica anyway?" Here are some pictures to illustrate my point. And for you uber-nerds out there I hear it is: 5405430 square miles. Not too Shabby. The Balloon, when it is fully inflated is the size of four 747's. It is tracked via GPS and no matter where it lands, one can recover it. I may be able to post a website that tracks these balloons, so stay tuned!



The 3rd and final phase of Crary is the Aquarium section. Yes, Brandon, you aren't dreaming, an Aquarium! Unfortunately there isn't a ton of research or specimens in the tanks now. This can be attributed to the time of season I have been told. There are of course several penguin projects being worked on. There are several tanks that have sea water being constantly pumped into them, at a chilling 27 degrees Fierenhiet. They are using the tanks for the scuba divers and the underwater camera's to practice in, so I can't swim with the penguins in the lab. The BBC is also here, filming their latest project for the Discovery Channel. If you thought Planet Earth was cool, wait until you see what they have been shooting down here. I have been told that they are using the tanks here to test all of their equipment, wicked! Brandon, would love the last part of the lab, which includes the "touch" tank. The tank is filled with all sorts of sea creatures that one can play with and touch. Ask Brandon what these are (pics to follow at a later date), because frankly I don't think he is using his degree in Marine Biology enough....in your face GENCO!














Now on my personal special edition of Science Sunday, I was able to see one of the underwater robots that McMurdo is using this season. It was my day off so I took a quick 15-20 min walk from Mcmurdo. On the ice, is this hut that a 7 foot torpedo shaped instrument is housed. The unit is controlled in this hut and the units job is to explore the sea creatures in our little bay. The scientists were hosting an open house, so people were able to pilot it and drive it around. its really funny to see this really sophisticated scientific device being controlled essentially by a Play Station II controller and a couple laptops. If they have any photo's taken with the machine I'll try to score them and upload them here for you all to see. Most of these previous photo's are from my buddy Ben down here. He and I are on the FD together, shout out to Ben Naples!!!!

So that was my weekend. I hope you all enjoyed Science Sunday. Hopefully when my new camera comes down here I'll be uploading some wicked awesome pics. Until then, stay safe and take care everyone.