October 2, 1975: Thursday

All morning was spent writing this journal, from notes and memory, for the last nine days. Put up pictures from the Erebus Ice Tongue and Marble Point.

Went over to Scott Base in the afternoon. Had trouble finding the place where you put the microphone onto the radio. It was right there in plain sight of course. We talk about making a road to Marble Point. Logistics. A D-8 bulldozer. Etc.

Dr. Dick comes up to check on us, our working group. Information for his virus study. We get called by John Oliver, the diver, to go help them on their dive. They’re going to get us a sample of the bottom sediment. They dive in a fish-hut hole. The ice is 8 feet thick and the water temperature is -1.9º C. (I stick my hand in it, just to say I had.)

The core samples have all sorts of strange little creatures and worm burrows and live clams and something that looks like a trilobite. We’re going to centrifuge it and run it through a photospectrometer and get a plot of particle size.

Next week we’re going out and take some current measurements on this side of the sound. Dr. Treves says we’ll publish it. Not many current studies down here.

Read and retire.