Hello All,
As promised, I wanted
to fill you folks in on studying seals in the Antarctic. There is group
here that is doing some impressive worth with seals, in fact they are
studying just how a seal (which is an air breathing animal) is able to
behave much like the lion of the sea. That is; chase after food, often
diving as far down as 600 meters, hunt it down, and have dinner - all
while holding its breath! Note that the Weddel seals they are studing
aren't really fast like lions - but sure have the strength. They are mounting
a computer/video tape/audio recorder to a sample seal and then recovering
the instruments. They are able to use the resultant video/audio/data combination
to learn more about how these seals hunt fish. They showed some early
results on how the seals blow bubbles underneath the sea ice to chase
out the fish
who are hinding under it, and then catch them for dinner. Really interesting
to see - especially since the camera they have is nearly the same point
of view that the seal sees. The seals dive/swim an average of 2 meters
per second - not bad actually. They even seem to use landmarks to know
where they are when they swim under the frozen McMurdo Sound, such as
Mt. Erebus (the local volcano on Ross Island where McMurdo Station is
located). The science team is even developing 3-D profiles of the dives
the seals do as well.
Weather here as been
a bit odd - nearly overcast, with a lot of wind. In fact the wind has
been so much, that out in the field, the geology science groups had to
stand/sit on the helicopters they had flown out
to the field locations they are working at, or they feared it would tip
over in the wind! They have canceled many flights to South Pole and Siple
Dome today due to the blowing snow. It isn't really bad out but
enough to make operations here a bit messy. Even helo flights for the
volcano folks to Mt. Erebus have been put on hold - the helos can't handle
the wind. Earilier this week, the joint US, Russian, and French
folks had been flown to Vostok to finish drilling the final 125 meters
of a 3650 meter ice core project that has been going on there for some
time. It is the deepest ice core ever made in the world. The US is also
drilling a 1000 meter ice core at Siple Dome. It may take two seasons
to finish. The bad weather a few weeks ago - before I arrived to McMurdo
- caused the opening of South Pole to be delayed 12 days: nearly breaking
the record of 14 since they've been keeping records on that.
For now the wind has stopped, and it has warmed up to nearly 32 degrees F!
Well, that is the scoop from here!
Take care!
Matthew