AMASE

Liane Benning and Jennifer Eigenbrode obtaining core samples in Friedrichbreen glacier, near Bockfjorden.

Juan Diego Rodriguez-Blanco: In the last days things have moved ahead in AMASE. Very busy days doing science. The Sun never sets and there are always plenty of things to do!

Adrienne Kish: You know you are in for a good day when the first thing you do after breakfast is get fitted for a pair of crampons. Backpacks were loaded with science gear for sampling the microbial life in glacial ice and ice coring gear, not to mention warm clothes, food, and hot chocolate and we headed out to the field site. Did I mention that our ride was a helicopter....?

Adrienne Kish: The simple explanation for why there was no blog entry for yesterday is that yesterday rather bled into today....it's all a bit of a blur. Science being what it is, we were processing samples until the wee hours of the morning and headed to bed for a quick one hour nap before rising from the dead to meet the Lance at is arrived at the NyAlesund harbor.

Adrienne Kish: There were dark circles under many eyes and not a few sore shoulders today from the ice coring team after returning from the glacier very late last night carrying 35 Kg of ice and metal each. The good news is that the 24hr daylight makes the long hikes back at midnight easier to navigate!

Adrienne Kish: The goddess Athena (otherwise known as the FIDO rover) was had her first public appearance on Svalbard today, and in fact as I write this at 11pm the team is still out coaxing Athena into picking up various sizes of rocks and storing them in her sample chambers designed as a prototype for a future Mars sample return.

Juan D. Rodriguez (AMASE team): This is my first post to the blog about AMASE 2009. I am writing it from the Spitzbergen Guest house, a nice little accommodation place located in Nybyen at the SE end of Longyearbyen (Svalbard), the place where part of the members of the AMASE expedition are staying before flying to Ny-Alesund today. I am writing this blog while lying on bed because I am very tired...after a full week of work... however, the starting of this trip could not have been better."