Antarctic Pioneers, Old and New

by Clifford Johnson     Department: Earth

I've been fascinated by Tamsin's posts about her activities in Antarctica. I hope you've been reading them. Spending time there is a remarkable experience, as you've gathered from her, and as I've learned from talking with other scientists who've been down there, such as Francis Halzen, who is a particle physicist. Yes, there are experiments of relevance to my field down there too. There's a great deal of science of all sorts being done down there (from the environmental work of Tamsin, to particle physics and cosmology, and points in between), making the scientists involved modern Antarctic pioneers, in a sense. Halzen is one of the driving forces behind the experiments called AMANDA - Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array - , and its successor IceCube, for example. (They are at the Amundsen-Scott station, whereas Tamsin is at the Halley station, as you might recall -  I found an excellent map here, the date of which I am not sure about.) AMANDA and IceCube are "neutrino telescopes", in a sense, and tell us a great deal about  fundamental particle physics, the workings of the sun, and the makeup of our universe. That work is complementary to, for example, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, "SNO", that  you may have seen on the WIRED Science show. See the segment here.

Actually, the modern science aspect is not what I wanted to mention (but do follow the links to the informative web sites for some of the physics I mentioned, and related work). I was thinking more about the remoteness of the place, and the hardship that must be endured there to do even the most basic activities. It's sobering to recall just how recently the pioneering expeditions to that continent were made, and to hear the remarkable stories about what happened. The people involved are the pioneers you usually think of when you think of Antarctic pioneers, I imagine, as opposed to scientists (although there were clear scientific aspects to those early explorations as well).

One the big names from that era is that of Sir Ernest Shackleton, in connection with the great ship the Endurance, and the 1914 expedition - intended to cross Antarctica - in which the ship was destroyed, and the party disappeared for two years and was presumed dead, only to reappear later.

Today, NPR did an encore airing of a documentary about this (made by John Rabe for American Public Radio Works in 1999), and I recommend it highly. It is called "Walking Out of History", and it's a gripping story. I found an excellent website with all the material, including maps, photos, interviews and recollections, transcripts, commentary from latter-day Antarctic explorer Ann Bancroft and others, and so forth. It's just great. I thought I'd share it with you. The site is here.

Enjoy.

-cvj

Tags: Antarctica, environment, neutrinos

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