[meteorite-list] Colorado Man Guides Scientists In Antarctica

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:53:32 2004
Message-ID: <200212021649.IAA29587_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E53%257E1022983%257E,00.html

Springs man guides scientists in Antarctica
By Diedtra Henderson
Denver Post
December 1,2002

The search party travels light, zips in via
small aircraft and battles chill and hidden hazards to stalk its quarry.

Special operations units searching Afghanistan for Osama bin Laden?

Nope.

Just a team of scientists that last week began searching for meteorites and
dislodged chunks from Mars and the moon that jump out against Antarctica's
stark landscape.

Because of the hazards on the continent containing the South Pole, explorers
are led by two mountaineers, including a Colorado guide who outsmarted armed
bandits in Africa, led expeditions to peaks such as Mount Kilimanjaro and,
without blinking, made life-or-death survival decisions for clients.

Colorado Springs-based guide Jamie Pierce sees job No. 1 as ensuring the
safety of researchers scouring the deep-frozen continent for shards of solar
system debris. "It's still the same place that killed Robert Scott and his
men," Pierce, 33, said in a telephone interview from McMurdo Station.

Sometimes, though, he gets to do a bit more. Last year, Pierce caught the
first glimpse of a 50- pound meteorite - the size of a soccer ball - in his
binoculars.

He terms it just an "ordinary chondrite," probably booted out of its home in
the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The find was sent, like all of
the others, to NASA's Johnson Space Center near Houston.

"It's a fun, unique time for me," he said. "Every day, you're learning
something new about these meteorites - the age and the type and maybe where
they came from. It's just this wonderful chance to learn this great
information."

Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University, flush with a new three-year,
$1.6 million NASA grant and National Science Foundation funding, began its
26th annual trip onto Antarctica's ice fields. This year's exploration will
last six weeks and will tread on hard- to-reach ice fields.

"We travel in some pretty forbidding conditions, and the mountaineers' role
is to help safeguard all us dweeby scientists and teach us to live and work
in difficult conditions," said Ralph Harvey, a Case Western planetary
geologist who directs that Antarctic Search for Meteorites Program, or
ANSMET.

"Difficult" conditions would include much of the extreme outdoor experience
for some researchers whose closest brush with nature has been the ivy
clinging to university walls.

"I'd say 95 percent don't have much field experience at all. Sometimes this
is their very first camping experience," Pierce said. "Within a week of
landing here, we're out in the middle of the Antarctic. These people have
never melted ice to get water before. ... They've never had to pee outside
before: awkward, uncomfortable things people have to grow used to."

Scientists looking for solar system debris train their attention on patches
of glacial blue ice, stripped clean of snow by winds that gust in excess of
70 mph.

Meanwhile, Pierce is alert to shivering, sudden quietness, white patches on
skin and a slowdown in movement. It's his job to keep his wits about him to
ensure that no one suffers frostbite or perishes in a crevasse on his watch.

"It all sounds good and fancy," he said. "The main thing is awareness and
staying out of hazards. We make very conservative decisions based on group
safety."

Despite the dangers, researchers are lured to the South Pole because of the
chance to snag exotic specimens. In the past 25 years, researchers have
found nearly 12,000 meteorites there. Only one in 1,000 is lunar or Martian
- rare meteorites that, among other things, inform research about the
presence of water on Mars.

In addition to biting cold and hidden crevasses, another danger comes from
the potential for fires sparked by stoves used inside tents.

"It's really micromanaging these people," Pierce said. "You have to stay on
top of them. It's not that they're not capable. They just don't know. They
don't have the experience."

Pierce draws from nearly a dozen years of guiding experience. He owns Summit
Expeditions International, a guide service based in Colorado Springs. Before
that, he worked for Alpine Ascents International, a Seattle company owned by
Todd Burleson, a storied Everest guide.

Pierce has guided on all seven continents with a specialty in technical
mountaineering, ice climbing and high-altitude peaks, including Denali,
Mount Kenya and Mount McKinley.

Or, as a recent "Outside" magazine piece gushed: "He's seen clients seize on
Rocky Mountain pinnacles, he's outwitted gunmen in Africa, he's brought the
dead back to life on Everest."

For now, Pierce is a man thousands of miles from home seriously coveting
fresh food.

"I hope this group coming in tomorrow has the fortitude to bring us some
fresh fruit. When it really is key is when we've been in the field for a
while," he said.

"The pilots will bring us eggs or oranges and apples. For the most part,
'freshies' are pretty much a hot commodity," Pierce said.

Science writer Diedtra Henderson can be reached at dhenderson_at_denverpost.com
or 303-820-1910.
Received on Mon 02 Dec 2002 11:49:08 AM PST