The Planetary Society Blog
By Emily Lakdawalla
Borup Fiord Pass Field Report: Three days of glorious weather and lots of work
Jun. 29, 2006 | 19:55 PDT | Jun. 30 02:55 UTC
It's been three days since the last report. On Tuesday, Steve Grasby spoke by phone with Mat Kaplan, for Monday's Planetary Radio show; he didn't call me that night or the following one, but I got a satellite phone call from a very happy Damhnait Gleeson this evening, and quickly learned why they hadn't called -- too busy!
Here's what I could write down from Damhnait's recitation of three days of work in Borup Fiord Pass.
"It's been fantastic! The sun is shining here, the sky is completely clear; we're very happy to have a bit of better weather to do some work.
"Tuesday in the morning we went out and we were looking at some of the formations in the area, checking the geology. We came across an interesting site that seemed like a paleo-spring site; this was way beyond the point where the ice has retreated to. The spring could have been operating beneath the ice once, or it could have been operating after it retreated, but judging from the glacial deposits on top of it it was probably under the ice. In the afernoon I was able to get out on the ice and get some spectra.
"On Wednesday we got our helicopter day, so that was cool! We started out with an aerial survey of the glacier, and we did a fly-over the whole area. We saw these vast ice fields and all these glaciers pouring down these different valleys, it was really spectacular. We took the helicopter out to the coast, and saw these outcrops of gypsum and evaporite deposits, the most beautiful rocks carved by water, and all these layers in the rocks, we all came back with all these rocks weighing down the helicopter -- we're geologists, that's what happens!
"We were flying around and seeing a lot of stuff, the whole area is spectacular. We visited this old field station called [Riverville]?" I couldn't understand the name of the place, I'll have to ask when they return. She went on: "And it was these prefab buildings, they haven't been used in like 20 years or something. There were all these food supplies and a huge wall full of spices and weird old food from the 1970s like whole canned chickens! There were things like tractors, old-fashioned snowmobiles inside, they're probably still good, it was funny to see all that stuff there -- we have funny pictures. I guess it's too hard to take that stuff out once it's been brought." When they return I'll get pictures from them and post a photo album.
Damhnait continued: "We were flying over these big areas, but the only sign of life we saw the whole day were these little herds of four or five musk ox. We saw one lone solitary seal on the ice beside its hole, and when we flew over it dove in. It's incredible how little life there is out here."
I asked her if they'd seen any other springs besides the one they'd been visiting already. "No, just the one we're working on seems to be the only one active this year.
"Today was a geology day, we spent the entire day clambering up these sheer cliffs and getting back down them. We did some investigation of the east-west fault, then were climbing up along the fault along these snow and ice talus slopes. We're learning more all the time, just trying to fit pieces of the puzzle together. It's just absolutely wonderful. There's not even a cloud in the sky now." There's some information on the regional geology, including the fault she's talking about, on this page about Borup Fiord Pass.
Stay tuned for further updates; the team expects to be in the field until around a week from today.
|
[ what is this? ]