South Pole: Since Amundsen and Scott - part 1

It's been almost a full century since Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott embarked on a race to reach this southern most frontier. The two men's journeys had dramatically different finalities, giving humanity a taste of victory and tragedy in the face of one of the toughest tests nature had to throw at us. Today, a newly completed US research station stands at the geographic south pole. It is the result of an ambotious construction effort that symbolizes our ambition to tame mother nature and conquer it all at what ever the cost. Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station is the name of this monument.

I recently visited the Amundsen-Scott station as part of a research expedition funded by the National Science Foundation between December 24th and January 15th. Our group was relatively small (two scientists and two drillers) among an average summer population of 250 for the station, most of whom are support personel that work very hard to keep the science going on under very harsh conditions. The task of our group was to drill two shallow ice cores (about 120 m deep) to collect firn air samples from various depths. Methane isotopes, ethane, propane, and butane are among many species that will be measured in the samples that have been collected. We hope to understand the causes of the atmospheric variability of these gases over the last century.