Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'They're just trying to melt the West Antarctic ice sheet,' Bob said, scrubbing a frozen leg of
lamb. He could seem abrasive, but really he was as soft as a marshmallow.
∗
Seismic Man had spent so long in the field over the past six weeks that he said 'Over' as he reached
the end of whatever he was saying. When he had to set off an explosion we rode far out from camp
on the back of Trigger, his snowmobile. The ice was mottled and ridged like a relief map, and
a hint of wind blew a fine layer of white powder over the surface. You could almost absorb the
psychic energy out there.
'You know what?' I said to him one day as I unpacked orange sausages of nitroglycerine.
'People call this a sterile landscape, because nothing grows or lives. But I think it's
pulsating
with
energy - as if it's about to explode, like one of these bombs.'
'Hell, yes,' he drawled. 'I've often felt as if it's alive out here. Hey, look at that,' he said, point-
ing to where the china-blue sky grew pale.
'It looks like a bunch of fuel drums,' I said.
'Ha!' he replied. 'It's the distorted image of camp, thrown up by refraction of the light. It's
caused by temperature inversion in the atmosphere.'
Every few minutes a sharp tirade would issue forth alarmingly from somewhere within the folds
of Seismic Man's parka. The beakers were forever gabbling to each other over the radio. They had
developed their own language, and entire conversations took place between Lars and Seismic Man
consisting of acronyms, nicknames and long-running, impenetrable jokes.
I had never met anyone who found life as effortless as Seismic Man. He approached everything
with a positive attitude, and saw something to laugh about in every situation. As a result, everyone
loved him. In addition, he was disarmingly perceptive. He seemed to have got me taped, any-
way. He exemplified the easy-going languor I associate with Texas, without any of the cowboy-hat
brashness.
'Can you tape the explosives into bundles of three?' he said, handing me a roll of tape. 'I have
to set up the shotbox.'
The drillers had already made a hole, and after attaching the first two orange bundles to an elec-
tric line, we lowered them both into it. Then we tossed down the other 400 pounds of explosives.
When the time came to initiate the detonator, I pressed the button on the shotbox and a black plume
shot up like a geyser. A sound that could have come from Cape Canaveral followed in a second.
'Wow,' I said.
'That's it, Woo!' said Seismic Man, throwing an empty tube of explosive into the air and head-
ing it like a football.
'How are we measuring the soundwaves, then?' I asked. 'When they bounce back up from the
earth's crust?'
'Well,' he said, packing up the shotbox, 'what we're trying to do here is image the geology
under 6,000 feet of ice. Seismology is the tool we use, and it operates either by refraction or reflec-
tion, the difference between the two being largely a function of scale in that reflection facilitates
the imaging of a smaller area in greater detail. With me so far?'
