UC Santa Barbara grad students Graham Hagen-Peter and Bryan Norman, along with their professor, are about to embark on a two-month expedition in the TransAntarctic Mountains. And they are taking you with them.
Dr. John Cottle, assistant professor of earth science; logistics coordinator Joanna Prince; and the grad students are PQed (that’s physically qualified), prepared and packed (see the breakdown of items here) for their scientific adventure.
Professor Cottle, who has also done extensive research in the Himalayas, has created a blog, Geologists on Ice (http://www.antarctica360.net/), especially for this trip to help offer insights into what team members are doing and how they are doing it.
UCSB grad students Bryan Norman, left, and Graham Hagen-Peter.Cottle said he and the students, who leave Thursday, Nov. 17, will utilize a satellite phone, laptop and other mobile devices to blog about their adventures two to three times a week. And they won’t have to worry about blogging in the dark. The last sunset in Antarctica was on Oct. 23 and the next won’t be until the end of February.
Cottle explained in a UCSB Office of Public Affairs press release why he created the Antarctica blog.
“There's an inherent curiosity about what happens when you go down there,” he said in the release. “What is it like? I really wanted to use this as a mechanism to increase people's understanding of what we do when we go down there."
The researchers will focus their work on rocks that are 400 million to 600 million years old found in a subduction zone preserved in the TransAntarctic Mountains. Because these rocks aren’t normally associated with the subduction process, the team will seek to learn why the rocks are there, how they formed and what they can reveal about modern and ancient subduction systems.
Bryan Norman, a native Santa Barbaran, is an M.S. student at UCSB. He earned a B.S. in Geology from UCSB, completing a senior thesis on geological mapping in eastern Nevada. Antarctica is the focus of one of two graduate studies projects.
Graham Hagen-Peter is pursuing his Ph.D. at UCSB. He earned his undergraduate degree in geology from the University of Vermont. He is hoping that 22 winters in Vermont will help prepare him for the Antarctic summer. Perhaps not.
“It's usually around minus 15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) where we'll be staying and working,” Cottle said in the news release.
To read the full press release about the trip and the blog, visit this page.