03 07 10: "The Big Goodbye"

We are less than 24 hours from Hobart and the end of this most amazing expedition. 

So, while the Wilkes Land Antarctic Expedition may have come to end,

the real scientific adventure is just about to begin!

We, the Scientists of the Wilkes Land Expedition will now begin to decipher the secrets of Antarctic climate change by:

exploring for the first time, well-recovered sedimentary archives deposited during the super hothouse world from near Antarctica;

discovering abrupt warming events during times when we thought Antarctica was already a permanently frozen world; and

delving into cores that are more like a tree ring record, but are from the bottom of the deep sea off of Antarctica.

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I have a few pics that I would like to share with you as this expedition comes to an end.

Febuary 18, 2010; last of the great sunrises

Some of the wildlife that crossed our paths

Some of the fascinating cores

The core on the right contains evidence of warming.  It also contains lots of tiny microfossils called nannofossils.

A day on the seas

A beautiful sunset as I have now moved to a 6 am to 6 pm work day.

This is Stephanie,  Carlota and I doing a video conference to almost 40 schools from around Texas.  I heard that there were over 1,700 students involved.

It has been a great adventure and want to thank everyone who looked in on my blogs and especially all those who emailed me about them.

Take care,

Steve