It’s the coldest, windiest, and driest place on the planet. High temperatures ranging from -10º to 0ºC are considered uncommonly pleasant, and that’s during the summer.
But on nine occasions during the past 15 years, Dr. Sridhar Anandakrishnan, University of Alabama assistant professor of geology, has called Antarctica his temporary home.
Anandakrishnan last visited Antarctica in December 2000, accompanied by UA graduate student Jerry Bowling, with plans of returning in November for further work on two research projects. In one project, known as the TransAntarctic Mountains Seismic Experiment, or TAMSEIS, Anandakrishnan is one of a small team of scientists researching the origin of the TransAntarctic Mountains.
“Mountains grow for different reasons,” Anandakrishnan said. “It’s not entirely clear what the mechanism is that builds up the TransAntarctic Mountains.”
In efforts to determine that mechanism, Anandakrishnan and the other scientists, including representatives from Washington University and Penn State, are constructing seismic stations along a 900-mile line of the frozen continent. Imagine a line drawn from Tuscaloosa to New York, with stations constructed every 50 miles along the way, to get an idea of the four-year project’s scope, funded by $750,000 from the National Science Foundation.
The seismic stations measure sounds resulting from vibrations in the earth. “The main source of sounds in the earth is earthquakes,” Anandakrishnan said. “As sound travels through the earth and up underneath the mountains to our device, it slows down and speeds up depending on what sort of rock it travels through,” he said.
By determining the area’s seismic velocity – the speed at which sound travels through the ground – scientists can infer the temperatures and pressures underground and can offer interpretations about how the area formed and how it may change.