SPRESSO

I'm trying to always, in my free time, take advantage of opportunities to go out and visit the various science projects going on at Pole. In early December, there were two USGS contractors here for a few days to install new electronics at the seismic station that's about 5 km away from the elevated station. I was lucky enough to happen to sit down with them at lunch and snagged myself an invite to go with them that afternoon to see that seismic station (which has the acronym SPRESSO, though I'm not totally sure what-all that stands for). 

So the two of them, plus one of the two research assistants here this year, plus another lucky interloper and I got in a piston bully and drove 5 km away from the station. It's by far the farthest away from the station I've been since I got here. And I got to try driving the piston bully!

SPRESSO is a couple of rooms that are actually underground, and get deeper underground each year as the snow drifts bury it more and more. So the first thing we had to do was dig out the "door" from the drifts that had accumulated in the few weeks since anyone else had been out there.

We paused to appreciate the multiple ladder extensions that have been installed as the snow builds higher and higher, and then had to tie the two computer-filled boxes that the USGS people had brought with them up with a piece of rope and lower them down the tunnel...

...before climbing on down ourselves!

The rooms where the electronics are kept are pretty tiny, but we stayed down there in that nice (heated!) space for awhile asking questions of the USGS folks, who were so generous and have what might be one of the coolest jobs on the planet, traveling around the world to the 100+ seismic stations maintained by USGS contractors.

Also, since so few people ever get out to SPRESSO, those who do write their names and the date on the wall. So I got to add mine to the list!

Then took our now-empty sled back to the piston bully and then back to the station. The piston bully is so slow that it takes 40 minutes to cover 5 km, so I had plenty of time to process the great adventure on the way back.