Update #2
27 Dec. - 5 Jan. 2003

Since arriving on the station we have been quite busy.  After all the offloading was completed, the ship left here on 31 Dec., taking most of the personnel who had stayed here all last winter.  There was an official ceremony for the change in station leaders and other personnel.  After spending a year here, I imagine it was quite emotional for those leaving and returning to the 'real world'. 

The station here is quite nice.  There is one large building, known as the "red shed", where we sleep, eat, and relax. There's a pool table, theatre for videos, library, and gym. It's really quite a comfortable place and one the best stations I've seen in Antarctica.  Soon after getting settled in, you lose track of days as there's no reason to remember a Monday versus Saturday, or any other day of the week.  Everyone helps out in keeping the station and the living quarters clean and in good shape.

Looking down the main street at Casey Station The 'red shed', or living quarters at Casey Station.

We also have spent some of our time undergoing field training. At every station I've visited in the Antarctic, a certain amount of field training is necessary before you can begin your research.  At Casey, our instructor was John Burgess, a very capable and knowledgeable climber and outdoorsman from Hobart who teaches outdoor survival to young people when he's not in Antarctica.  The training he gave us at Casey helped get us familiar with the station procedures, where it was safe to walk and where not to walk around the station, and he provided us with some survival skills just in case we get caught out in a blizzard or if an accident occurs.  The training is especially important for those who have never been to the Antarctic.  You need to get familiar with the techniques for walking on ice, using an ice pick to walk up snowi-covered hills or catch yourself from sliding if you fall, how to tie ropes for rescue operations, etc.  We even spent a night out, sleeping in down sleeping bags with bivey bags (windproof covers over the bags).  So, I was able to sleep comfortable outside without getting cold.  With this equipment, I could survive through a blizzard by getting inside the bivey bag and the sleeping bag and waiting out the storm.  This type of training actually is good to know no matter where you live. You never know when it may come in handy and save lives.

John Burgess (rear) shows Rodney and Michele how to use an ice pick Rodney learning 'self-arrest' with an ice pick while hiking up a steep slope.

John shows Michele and Rodney how to use a map and compass. Michele, John, and Rodney at Robo's Hut, where we trained.

On New Year's Eve, we had a special dinner. Lots of good food and one of the cooks, who is a talented artist and sculpter, carved some penguins out of large blocks of butter for the table centerpiece.  We stayed up until midnight, then went outside where the sun, now low on the horizon, was casting an orange glow over the ice bergs in the bay in front of the station.  It was a great way to bring in the new year.

    New Year's Eve dinner with penguin centerpiece. Station personnel wish each other a happy New Year at midnight.

The view in front of Casey Station at midnight on New Year's.

We began fieldwork on abandoned penguin colonies on Jan. 2.  There were over 20 of these sites scattered on ridge tops right around the station, so this was the easiest place for me to begin my project. These sites look old too--they are far from access points or beaches where the penguins could get to them today. Obviously, these colonies were occupied sometime in the past when the conditions around the station were very different from today.  The colonies are easily identified by the concentration of pebbles on the surface that penguins once used for their nests. When a colony is used by penguins for hundreds of years, all the pebbles they constantly bring up to their nests accumulate over time into a large mound.  This mound stands out from the surrounding, natural terrain and is easy to find once you know what to look for.

Michele by a pebble concentration where penguins once bred. Steve beginning to sample the first site near Casey Station.

Michele and Rodney help screen sediments from the excavation. The bottom of the test pit with large cobbles buried under pebbles.

We sampled three abandoned colonies over the past two days.  To sample them, we excavated a 1x1 meter square pit in the middle of the colony and dug down in 5-cm levels.  Each level contains organic remains left by the penguins--either bones from penguin chicks that died on the colony, or remains of prey brought in by the adults to feed their chicks. The preservation of these remains is quite good here since they are frozen most of the year.  These remains could include fish bones, otoliths (fish ear bones), and squid "beaks" (the mouth parts of the squid).  The sediments also contained thousands of penguin eggshell fragments that accumulated over decades to hundreds of years while the colony was occupied by breeding birds. To retrieve these remains, we must screen all the sediments through fine-mesh sieves.  Most of this is done in the lab, where we can wash the sediments through the screens, dry them, then sort them under a magnifying lamp or binocular microscope.

Strata in the test pit showing the penguin sediments, mostly pebbles. The site, after backfilling the pit, shows no signs of our disturbance

I won't know the exact age of these sites, or when they were occupied and abandoned by the penguins, until I can send samples of bones or eggshell to another lab to complete radiocarbon analysis.  This dating technique will provide an accurate age of the sites within 50 years.  I suspect that these sites are 3000 to 4000 years old, but I won't know for certain until I can get the radiocarbon dates.

After sampling three sites, we had lots of sediments to sort through, so we spent a couple of days washing the samples through sieves in the lab. This washing will allow us to recover organic remains, including bones, for later analysis.  In my next update, I'll explain more about this process and show what some of the samples look like. We already are finding some good things, so it's been interesting and exciting.

Steve Emslie
5 Jan. 2003