IGY Bulletin, Number 1, July 1957 - Arctic drift ice station program

We'll see if I can catch up with these article summaries from the IGY Bulletin, and get back on schedule. At this point, I'm still on the first issue from July 1957, with an article on the Arctic drift ice station program.

Although both regions surround geographic poles, there are significant differences between the Arctic and the Antarctic. Among other things, the continent of Antarctica is covered by an ice sheet glacier (as is Greenland in the northern hemisphere). There is no continent at the North Pole. However, the Arctic Ocean (as well as the Antarctic region) has abundant sea ice, frozen seawater that floats on the ocean surface (like ice cubes in your cocktail). Pack ice, mentioned in the last post, occurs when chunks of sea ice freeze together. Antarctic ice shelves form as floating ice where a glacier flows into the sea, still attached to the ice on land. An iceberg is a large mass of ice that floats in the sea that has broken off from an ice sheet or tidewater glacier.

Besides the Antarctic stations mentioned in the last post, two Arctic stations were set up in preparation for the IGY. The Arctic stations were on drifting ice. Station A was on a slab that was about 4 square miles in area, and 7' thick. Station B, officially known as Fletcher's Ice Island T-3, was on an iceberg as I mentioned in an earlier post (along with a related philatelic cover). It was 40 square miles, and about 150' thick, calved off a West Greenland tidal glacier.

The article goes on to summarize operational aspects and scientific objectives of these stations. It was a challenge to construct the 5000'-long runways needed to supply the stations on these two blocks of floating ice. The IGY Station Scientific Leader for Station A was Maurice Davidson, at that time with Lamont Geological Observatory of Columbia University. When I was in grad school, I worked one summer and then part-time for Newmont Mining Exploration Company outside Tucson, maintaining the geophysics group's database software. Maury was the head of geophysics for our small group. Darn, wish I knew then what I know now.

The stations were to be used for a variety of measurement types associated with the IGY subdisciplines. Among them was the determination of ice budgets and their changes over time due to accumulation and ablation by using stakes, gravity measurements, and vertical cores.

Most IGY philatelic covers about polar regions focus on Antarctica. The one below depicts a polar bear, so that puts us in the Arctic. (If it were the Antarctic, we'd be seeing penguins.)

My cover US085, House of Farnham cachet, Mellone catalog 9 

All the ice stuff in this post made me think of, what else, a song:

Say what you want about this song, about cultural appropriation or otherwise, but it was the first hip hop single to top the Billboard Hot 100, and has almost 400 million views on YouTube.

I shall end as the song does: "Let's get out of here! Word to your mother!"