Photo Credit - AGAP team There were many times in the last two months where it seemed that the Antarctic Continent would win, keeping hidden the extensive landscape of subglacial lakes and mountains beneath the several kilometers of ice on Dome A. All the advance planning and negotiating with program leaders and logistics groups for enough days in the field to run the airborne geophysics were of little importance once we arrived on Antarctica. At this point we were negotiating with the continent herself, and we learned she can drive a hard bargain! The group at AGAP S camp had anticipated...

In order to move work teams to the AGAP camps we must move everyone through the South Pole in order to acclimatize to the high altitude. This has presented a bottleneck of sorts, and along with other delays is putting the project considerably behind schedule. With equipment calibrated and people antsy to move out of McMurdo the next focus is how to move people through the next short stop at South Pole. A spreadsheet has been made and people have been moved back and forth on the sheet in response to weather delays and changing shifting. For days people have had bags sorted and checked waiting...

For several years we have been preparing for what seems an incredibly small window of a field season. Working as part of a six nation team we have coordinated our equipment, our personnel, our science plans, and our logistics until it seems we will even breath at the appropriate time! Our project, Antarctic Gamburtsev Province (AGAP), will map through the ice of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, imaging the sleeping giant that lies below. This sleeping giant is a European Alp sized mountain range called the Gamburtsev Mountains, discovered 50 years ago by a team of Russian scientists as they traversed across this extensive ice sheet. Di...

Saturday, 26 January Hi, and good morning. Yaaawn... it’s me again, Nils. Yaaaawn... We had a long night here on board FS Polarstern, followed by a cold, wet and stormy morning. Now it is 11 a.m., I am frozen to the bones, my stomach is unhappy about the waves, and I have been on my feet for 27 hours. Well, about that long. I should tell the story from the beginning. We are on our way home, at a station at 52° southern latitude. Two months ago we have already been here once to take samples. Now, on our way back, we are taking samples again at the same spot to see if anything has change...

Date: 23 January 2008 Altitude: Close to sea level Maximum and Minimum Temperatures: - 2 degrees C (McMurdo) & - 35 degrees C (South Pole) We had a 3 hours comfortable flight from South Pole to McMurdo this morning. We were picked up by a bus at the airfield that is located on the sea ice some 10 km from the US McMurdo Station. When we arrived at McMurdo Station we received a brief from the NSF Representative and had an interesting guided tour to Scott’s hut. It feels like having been arrived in a big city when we suddenly are surrounded by more than 1000 persons. - Jan-Gunnar ...

Report from the Swedish part of the Japanese-Swedish Antarctic Expedition, JASE, Report no 20. We arrived today in late afternoon to the Svea Station (74o34’S, 11o13’W). The view from the station is magnificent over the large blue ice areas of Scharffenbergbotnen, surrounded by alpine mountain walls. The weather is excellent and we are all excited by the incredible environment, though we have seen it before. However, the experience is probably enhanced by the fact that we only have watched the snowy horizon of the Polar Plateau for more than a month. Nevertheless, this is a beautiful place. The decent from the Polar Plateau went smooth and quick. We climbed down 1200 metres in altitude on one day and today we have been driving along the Heim...

Report from the Swedish part of the Japanese-Swedish Antarctic Expedition, JASE. Report no 19. We have now reached 75oS, 10oW which is our last science stop on our traverse. Here the ice surface is undulating as a result of a very strong bedrock relief underneath us. The ice depth varies between 500 and 3000 m over short distances. The mountains can only be seen on the radar screen but they tell a story of how the ice sheet once was formed here for some 20 million years ago. We will spend a day of detailed mapping of a section of these mountains for a landscape development analysis. The travel from the Kohnen station to this site went very smoothly. The weather was fine and the snow conditions have greatly improved since we passed here in the beginning of Dece...

Report from the Swedish part of the Japanese-Swedish Antarctic Expedition, JASE. Report no 18. On Saturday afternoon we reached the Kohnen station (75oS, 0oE-W). The hospitality shown by the German crew has been overwhelming. We felt like sailors coming from the great ocean to a friendly harbor. We have had the opportunity to be shown the drill hall of the EPICA deep ice core drillings. It is an impressive construction in a 60 m long and 7 m deep snow trench. It is a historical scientific site. Today we have been able to relax, repack sleds and made repairs of the vehicles. We are now prepared for the last legs of this expedition. We will take off Monday morning for the next move towards the Heimefrontfjella mountain range where we will have a science stop wh...

Thursday 10th January 2008 I woke to the jolting and whoosh of the ship going through pack ice. We are working the CASO grid south again but the ice has forced a change, so we head westwards to skirt the pack and come in on a parallel that offers open sea. Icebergs and floes are the habitat of the beautiful, pure white Snow Petrel. It is hard to say which of the Antarctic birds is the most captivating but this small bird is a striking sight against sea or sky. The Cape Petrel (someone called it the 'magpie' of Antarctica) has careless splodges of black and white across its wings while...

Expedition Diary January 7, 2008 3500 meters above sea level Maximum & Minimum temperatures: - 24 to - 35 °C Never a uniform white blanket on the ice sheet, the character of the surface snow takes on many different forms. On the microscale, different crystal forms tell stories of their arrival to the surface as gently falling snow, wind-battered hard pack, or deposition as surface hoar through condensation events. To a traverse train of vehicles, generous amounts of gently-fallen snow represent “snow swamps” in which the treads sink and dig their way in, sometimes preventing a vehic...