Road to Antarctica
A Butler County native spent two months examining boulders for sun burn and collecting ancient freeze-dried algae in the coldest, most arid spot on Earth.
Fortunately, Maraina Miles' trip to Antarctica last winter was field research, not a vacation. And while most of the time was spent collecting samples, she did manage to get in a few cribbage games.
The former Oakland Township resident took a circuitous route to the southern continent.
The daughter of Mary Miles and the late Timothy Miles, Miles graduated from the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School then graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2013 with bachelor's degree in sculpture.
“Then I spent two years as a gardener/janitor at the Pittsburgh Aviary,” she said, before enrolling at Slippery Rock University to work on a degree in environmental science-geology.
“I had been interested in geology and picked environmental art projects as sculptures,” Miles said.
“Art is really good at asking questions, but doesn't provide a framework for answers. Science is good at that,” she said, adding, “some day I hope to combine the two.”
But for now, she's pursuing answers with science, graduating from SRU in 2018 and then becoming a graduate student at the University of Maine pursuing a master's degree in Earth and climate sciences.Miles studies moraines, the rock formations deposited by glaciers. This field led to her inclusion on an all-female team including her adviser Brenda Hall, the supervising professor; Tess Walther, a fellow graduate student; and Laura Mattas, an undergraduate student.Going to the bottom of the world takes some traveling, she said.“We flew from Maine to Los Angeles and from Los Angeles to Christchurch (New Zealand). It took two days. It all kind of blurred together,” Miles said. “Then we flew by military cargo plane to McMurdo Station.”Miles and her companions were then flown by helicopter to the Dry Valley region, an area of largely snow-free valleys.“The terrain was rocky, not ice covered,” she said, perfect for conducting their sample collecting.Miles hiked up to 10 miles per day as she and the three other researchers covered areas where few humans, if any, have ever set foot.
“In some places there were maybe three groups of people who passed through there ... ever,” said Miles.“It's a lot to process. It was really great because I could read about all these glacial features in textbooks and then I got out of a helicopter and it was all right there in front of me.”Miles' research centered on glacial behavior and predicting the stability of the Antarctic Ice Sheet in response to global warming. The AIS is the largest single mass of ice on Earth and covers about 98 percent of the Antarctic continent.Miles honed in on exposed rock deposits from the Walcott Glacier, which is located in the Royal Society Range of the Transantarctic Mountains, to reconstruct the past behavior of the glacier. The research collected will show how the AIS will respond to future warming.“We were trying to figure out what it looked like when the glaciers receded at the end of the last Ice Age, about 18,000 years ago,” said Miles.“There were really old deposits with boulders that have been there a million years. I have such a small piece of the puzzle, but (overall) we're trying to figure out what future sea-level rise would be, how much ice would be flowing out and where it would be coming from, because what happened last time (the ice receded) could happen next time.”Miles measured the levels of beryllium on deposits to estimate the time a rock has been exposed on the surface, and where there is a series of rocks, the researchers can map the rate at which the glacier retreats. Beryllium is a rare chemical element that is produced by exposure to cosmic rays.“It's sort of like checking a rock for sun burn,” she said.
Antarctica is a treasure trove for geology researchers, “because no one has been there to mess it up,” Miles said. The rock formations are undisturbed with no rainfall or vegetation and the continent is virtually uninhabitable due to year-round subfreezing temperatures.Miles and her research team were there from December through February during the antarctic summer months when temperatures were between 15 and 25 degrees Fahrenheit.“But it felt much colder because of the hurricane-force, katabatic winds that rush high-density air down from the elevated slopes,” said Miles. “The rocks look like they've been polished because they have been windswept for thousands of years.”“Some of the rocks are sandblasted by the wind into sculpture shapes,” she said.In addition to rock samples, Miles also collected algae specimens that may have been frozen 8,000 years ago.“Streams of water would melt off the glaciers. Algae mats would grow in the streams and then get covered by sediment and flash frozen when it got cold again,” she said.The entire research team stayed in three tents, two people per tent with one tent for cooking, for five straight weeks at three sites. A helicopter would occasionally arrive to drop off supplies and pick up the hundreds of pounds of rock samples they collected.
“It was like extreme 'glamping,'” said Miles, using the term for glamorous camping with modern amenities. “We had comfortable mattresses and a cooler of frozen vegetables and we ate really well. The biggest challenge was just being responsible for the possibility of hypothermia and understanding when you're getting too cold.”“There were a couple of days when it was snowing, so we were stuck in the tents,” she said. “We played a lot of cribbage, apparently cribbage is a Maine thing. I read 11 or 12 books.”They only encountered one other group while in the field, researchers who were using a nearby stream for water, “but they didn't even bother to say 'Hi,'” Miles said with a laugh.They weren't completely isolated, Miles said. The helicopter would move them from site to site.“We had a satellite phone, but we limited it to five minutes per week per person because we didn't want to use the generator to power up the phone battery,” she said.Despite the less than luxurious conditions, the harsh weather and the boring terrain, Miles said she'd love to return.“I'd love to go back,” she said. “We applied for a grant this year, but we didn't get the funding.”
- The existence of a “southern land” was not confirmed until the early 1820s when British and American commercial operators and British and Russian national expeditions began exploring the Antarctic Peninsula region and other areas south of the Antarctic Circle. Not until 1840 was it established that Antarctica was indeed a continent and not merely a group of islands or an area of ocean. Several exploration “firsts” were achieved in the early 20th century, but generally the area saw little human activity. Following World War II, however, the continent experienced an upsurge in scientific research. A number of countries have set up a range of year-round and seasonal stations, camps and refuges to support scientific research. To form a legal framework for the activities of nations on the continent, an Antarctic Treaty was negotiated that neither denies nor gives recognition to existing territorial claims; signed in 1959, it entered into force in 1961.- With an area of 5.41 million square miles, it is the fifth-largest continent, following Asia, Africa, North America, and South America, but larger than Australia and the subcontinent of Europe.- It is the coldest, windiest, and driest continent on Earth; severe low temperatures vary with latitude, elevation, and distance from the ocean. East Antarctica is colder than West Antarctica because of its higher elevation. The Antarctic Peninsula has the most moderate climate. Higher temperatures occur in January along the coast and average slightly below freezing; summers are characterized by continuous daylight, while winters bring continuous darkness. Persistent high pressure over the interior brings dry, subsiding air that results in very little cloud cover. Antarctica's terrain is about 98 percent thick continental ice sheet and 2 percent barren rock, with average elevations between 2,000 and 4,000 meters. Ice-free coastal areas include parts of southern Victoria Land, Wilkes Land, the Antarctic Peninsula area, and parts of Ross Island on McMurdo Sound; glaciers form ice shelves along about half of the coastline, and floating ice shelves constitute 11 percent of the area of the continent.- Antarctica has no indigenous inhabitants, but there are both permanent and summer-only staffed research stations, Fifty three countries have signed the 1959 Antarctic Treaty; 30 of those operate through their National Antarctic Program a number of seasonal-only (summer) and year-round research stations on the continent and its nearby islands. The population engaging in and supporting science or managing and protecting the Antarctic region varies from about 4,400 in summer to 1,100 in winter; in addition, about 1,000 personnel, including ship crews and scientists doing onboard research, are present in the waters of the treaty region.— CIA World Factbook
