Many collegians bask in sunny, palm-fringed locales during winter breaks. Not seven adventurous seniors at UCSB, who've just returned from nearly two months of research in the icy waters of Antarctica.
  In these pinched times, even veteran scientists have trouble getting funding to work at the bottom of the world, but UCSB geophysicist Bruce P. Luyendyk, a firm believer in undergraduate participation in research, didn't let that stop him.

Professor Luyendyk (kneeling at left) Dr. Chris Sorlien (Standing right) and UCSB undergraduates (l-r) Rhea Hamilton, Jill Sandlin, Carmen Alex, Erik Johnson, Kirsten Zellmer, (knelling l-r) Eric Vanek, and Tamara Garcia at Pegasus ice runway near McMurdo Station, Antarctica, February, 1996.

As co-chief scientist of the expedition, he persuaded the National Science Foundation—Chief sponsor of US polar research programs—to let the apprentice scientists join him aboard the NSF Icebreaker Nathaniel B. Palmer, even though there was not a bachelor's degree among them, to say nothing of a PhD.
  "The best way to get students to understand something is to throw them into the deep end of the pool," said Luyendyk, fondly recalling his own initial seagoing experience as an undergraduate aboard a Scripps Institution of Oceanography research ship in the Pacific. The young scientists found it a very chilly pool indeed—though immensely enjoyable as well.

U.S. Antarctic Program research icebreaker Nathanial B. Palmer in the sea ice near McMurdo station (photo Carmen Alex).

Pushing through the thick ice floes of the Ross Sea, amid a fantastic collection of whales, seals, penguins, and other marine life, the Palmer zigzagged for 40 days along a 60-mile stretch of Antarctica's western coast known as Mary Byrd Land (after the wife of famed American polar explorer Richard E. Byrd).
  It was here that scientists suspect New Zealand broke off from Antarctica in the split up of the primordial continent known as Gondwanaland some 80 million years ago, but Luyendyk and his young colleagues wanted to find firm proof of that great geophysical divorce on the largely uncharted sea floor.
  "We intended to look for scars of those ancient events by using various sounding techniques," said Luyendyk,"and I felt the brains, muscle, and youthful enthusiasm of a few undergraduates would be a terrific addition. They could monitor the recording instruments, compile the data, work the computers—do any number of the chores that are a routine part of a complex scientific expedition."


  His co-chief scientist Louis Bartek, a glaciologist at the University of Alabama, readily agreed. So last fall Luyendyk put out word he needed undergraduate help for the impending expedition. He quickly got about 20 applicants, each of whom he interviewed personally.
  " I was looking not only for scholarship, but also a sober sense of Adventure," said Luyendyk, who picked the 7 participants—five women and two men, all of whom plan to go on to graduate studies in the field.
  Bartek, his scientific partner, joined the youthful spirit of the cruise by bringing along two more undergraduates from Hamilton and Middlebury Colleges.

Iceberg seen off the cost of western Marie Byrd Land (photo Carmen Alex).

How did the junior scientists do?
  "It was great" said Carmen Alex, a student from Mannheim, Germany. "Not only learning new things in a fascinating part of the world, but living and working with people from other institutions and other countries."
  Next time, she wants to do some diving under the ice, she said. "I can't wait to go back." Others in the group—Tamara Garcia, Rhea Hamilton, Erik Johnson, Jill Sandlin, Erik Vanek, and Kristen Zellmer—shared her enthusiasm.


  Not everything went icy smooth, however. The fledgeling scientists were supposed to board the ship in McMurdo Sound, site of the big US base in Antarctica. But on the first attempt to get there, dense fog kept their plane from landing on the McMurdo runways, which are carved out of the ice covering the sound.
  So they had to return to Christchurch, New Zealand, where they waited anxiously for several days for a break in the weather at McMurdo, some 2,500 miles away.

UCSB students Erik Johnson (left) and Eric Vanek (right) hauling cables on the fantail of the Palmer (photo Carmen Alex).

When they finally got to their ship, a few stomachs immediately turned as the Palmer rode up and down the thick ice, occasionally slipping off to the side when its reinforced prow could not break through. But the moments of seasickness soon passed as they threw themselves into their work, doing such things as letting out cable-towed acoustic and magnetic sensors from the Palmer's stern, then hauling them back in. It was the telltale echoes of sounds generated by the instruments that provided a picture of the geology of the sea floor and the layers below it.


  Every minute wasn't spent on the job, though. At times, when the ship came to a complete standstill in the ice, the student scientists disembarked to stroll playfully on the frozen world around them.
  There were also moments of high anticipation, as when the ship roared up its powerful diesel and tried to push a huge ice floe—about a mile wide, two miles long, and seven feet thick—in order to sample the sea floor directly underneath it.
  "Unfortunately, we could only budge it a few feet," said Chris Sorlien, a post-doc from King of Prussia, Pennsylvania—the lone PhD from UCSB on board other than Luyendyk.


  Off-duty, the students watched videos, sampled the ship's library, played ping-pong, and feasted on what they generally agreed was splendid cuisine. They slept comfortably in two-berth cabins—even though the sunshine of the long days of the austral summer streamed through the ports.

UCSB students (l-r) Carmen Alex, Jill Sandlin, and Tamara Garcia working in the main lab of the Palmer in the eastern Ross Sea.

But the greatest joy came from the science. Even though they have only begun to analyze their mountains of data in the form of many reels of magnetic tape and rolls of paper covered with squiggly tracings of the sea floor, they've apparently already made some important discoveries.

  "For one thing", said Luyendyk, "there seems to have been a hitherto unknown episode of major faulting some 20 million or more years after New Zealand broke from Antarctica. We also found that these events formed a series of ridges and valleys that were subsequently gouged by glaciers at a time when sea levels were much lower. The glaciers carved huge canyons, some of them 400 or 500 meters deep. In addition, the expedition uncovered at least one significant error on existing charts of the area which showed one of Antarctica's coastal capes—Cape Colbeck—some 15 miles north of its actual position."

  "We'll all have plenty of material to write up," said Luyendyk, who pronounced himself immensely pleased with his youthful team but added with mock severity:"Naturally, they won't be excused from this aspect of the trip."