Drilling for Insight in Antarctica

What the Sedimentologists See

Dr. Franco Talarico (University of Siena - Italy) in front of Corelyzer. Photo taken by Betty Trummel, Humann Elementary School, Crystal Lake, Illinois

“Besides viewing the raw core and the high-res enlarged images,” says Levy, “our scientists are able to use Corelyzer to integrate into the on-screen display physical properties such as sonic velocity, magnetic susceptibility, and density curves. You can actually fly up and down the core, and look at those data on the Mac in real time.

“We might see an interval that looks fairly homogeneous, but notice that its physical properties change. Why? We can use the 30-inch screens to identify the interval, go back and look at the raw core, and come back to the screen. So we can interact between the technology and the raw core to help refine and adjust our descriptions.

“One of our scientists has the job of describing the rock fragments he sees in the core. Where do these sediments come from? Can they help us learn where the glaciers that are dumping at this site have been picking up material? So Corelyzer helps us reconstruct paleoglacial activity.”

In the evenings, the ANDRILL sedimentologists on the MIS expedition took other scientists on a tour of the day’s cores. The scientists sat at the Cinema Display screens to identify sections of the raw cores they wanted to sample for laboratory analysis. Core sections containing volcanic ash were dated radiometrically. Other sections were dated by biostratigraphy – the distribution of fossils. “At this point we’re able to date the top 600 meters to be about 5 million years and younger,” says Levy.

Apple in Antarctica: Dependability Matters

As someone has said, there isn’t a lot of tech support in Antarctica. The stability of the Mac platform was of major importance to the scientists who used it constantly during the ANDRILL MIS expedition.

“We took down a Mac Pro with two 30-inch Apple Cinema displays,” says Josh Reed, IT and Data Manager for the MIS project. “We also brought a PC, but it wasn’t as stable with Corelyzer as the Mac. There were crashes and it was pretty frustrating.”

“What we’ve noticed,” says Jason Leigh of EVL, “is that the geoscience community treats technology like these tiled displays as an instrument, not a computer They want something they can turn on and use, and that’s it. That’s where I think Apple is significant here, because it’s a trusted vendor, producing very stable technology that geoscientists like using anyway.”

That is true of Richard Levy, an ANDRILL paleontologist and biostratigrapher who confesses to being a Mac person. “I also believe that Megan Berg, who designed our excellent web site, was born in front of a Mac,” says Levy. “She made me switch from PowerPoint to Keynote the other day.”

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