New world revealed under ice

It’s difficult enough to get to Antarctica. One team of scientists has an even more challenging goal: to drill through the frozen Antarctic sea ice – and explore the ocean beneath it.

Dr. Stacy Kim is one of the few scuba divers who have explored the ocean under the thick Antarctic ice. I can’t imagine the cold of these frigid waters, or the claustrophobia of swimming under sometimes 30 feet or more of ice, but I am told that Antarctica is one of the most beautiful places in the world to dive. It makes sense; after all, the Antarctic underwater environment is one of the last undisturbed ecosystems on the planet.

After a day helping one science team try to reach this cold, submarine environment, I can see just why it remains so untouched: It’s not exactly easy to get to.

“We really appreciate you coming out today,” Kim says. “This is a really exciting part of the season for us.”

Kim and her team are exploring the underwater ecological space in McMurdo Sound. But it won’t just be scuba divers collecting data under the ice this year. To expand their capabilities, the team has designed an underwater robot called SCINI – submersible capable of under ice navigation and imaging.

Underwater robots like SCINI allow research at greater depths and in more remote regions. While Stacy and other scuba divers still delve under the thick Antarctic sea ice, SCINI is helping them go farther and into more dangerous places where they wouldn’t risk their lives.

Today, three of us are here to help out the team. Bob Zook, one of the engineers, introduces us around the lab. “We need one person to dive-tend, helping Stacy with her scuba gear,” he says. “And we need two people to help us drill holes through the ice out at Cape Armitage, to deploy SCINI.” The next thing I know, I’m in a Piston Bully tracked vehicle, motoring across the ice to drill holes.

One of the advantages of using SCINI for underwater research in Antarctica is that the 8-inch-diameter robot needs only a narrow hole in the ice to reach the sea. Built to operate through the frozen ocean in polar regions, SCINI is controlled from the surface with a joystick and a tether. The tether carries information up to the pilot and scientists – images of the sea floor, navigational data and more – and allows the pilot to control the robot’s motion.

There are three methods for getting through Antarctic sea ice: drilling, blasting and melting. Melting is time-consuming and requires a full support camp to refuel the melting rig. Blasting requires explosives experts. We use a Jiffy ice drill with a lot – and I mean a lot – of extensions. While tackling more than 20 feet of solid ice with a Jiffy drill seems daunting at first, I am assured that this is the easiest way.

“Drilling 5-inch-wide holes for the navigation is relatively easy,” Bob tells me. “But we need to drill a 10-inch-wide hole for SCINI. That gets more fun. When you hit the water while drilling a 10-inch-wide hole, the water pressure is enough that it will push the drill up into the air.” He laughs. “The first time that happened, we weren’t expecting it at all, and it blew the drill – all 20-something feet of it – almost all the way out of the hole.”

Once the holes are finished, the next trick is to keep them from freezing over before we can put SCINI in. We drop a heater into the hole, attaching it to a small portable generator.

Meanwhile, Kim has slid down a long, wider ice hole closer to the station, swimming under the thick ice with a camera. I can’t imagine what it’s like down there.

Two days later, though, I get a glimpse of that world, from video taken by the underwater robot SCINI. Images of the underside of the ice float across the screen, crystalline and watery. Slush hovers at the bottom end of the hole we had drilled through the ice. And to my surprise, the sea floor is actually full of undisturbed life: There are vast fields of giant volcano sponge, Anoxycalyx joubini, large enough to surround a diver. They are likely thousands of years old, and beyond the diving limits for a human being.

I have driven across the sea ice here at McMurdo without once thinking about what was beneath it. An entire world, as colorful and fascinating as the Transantarctic Mountains or the Polar Plateau, lies down there, waiting to be explored.

Meg Adams, who grew up in Holden and graduated from John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor and Vassar College, shares her experiences with readers each Friday. For more about her adventures, go to the BDN Web site: bangordailynews.com or email her at madams@bangordailynews.net