No shoggoths yet.

NASA press release:

A new university-led study with NASA participation finds ancient Antarctica was much warmer and wetter than previously suspected. The climate was suitable to support substantial vegetation — including stunted trees — along the edges of the frozen continent.

They discovered this by way of borings that brought up samples of vegetation, pollen, elder signs...

Adding a touch of realism

You wanted Martians, you've got 'em, mate.

British, French and Italian scientists will travel to Antarctica so they can waste money pretending they're at a Mars base.

Someone should remind them that it gets boring down there and their fellow, more terrestrial-minded colleagues may not be above a joke, so be prepared when answering the door.

R J MacReady, call your service

This will not end well

Russian scientists breach an Antarctic lake that has been sealed for 14 million years.  So far, that makes for a passingly interesting story until these sort of bits show up in the Popular Science story (emphasis added):

The team is apparently alive and well despite a week of suspicious radio silence,.

And,

Last week we thought that might happen again–if anyone could even hail the scientists–because conditions are getting worse, but no one heard from the team in several days. Then on Monday, the Russian news agency announced the team's success.

Then,

But scientists want to reach it because it could hold weird forms of life that survive in deep cold and with no sun.

Sealed for 14 million years? Weird life forms? Base cut off by bad weather? Lost radio contact? Then the team calmly says that everything's fine?

Send in the flame throwers!

The South Pole question

Al Fin looks at the story of the female manager of the South Pole Station who is yammering to be air lifted from the base for medical reasons while officials back home point out that it's too dangerous to risk sending a plane in the Antarctic winter.   This serves as the starting off point to question modern Feminism's insistence on giving women every opportunity available for men while still allowing easy opt outs when the going gets tough.

In regard to the manager of SPS, I don't know if her being a woman is as great a factor as her being unsuited to command an Antarctic installation.  This "Damn the aircrews, I've got an aneurysm!" attitude hardly has the Admiral Byrd spirit to it and she should clearly never have been given a position of such responsibility.  However, I do think that Al Fin has it right about our blindly shoving women into hazard without any thought beyond placating doctrine Feminists.  The point about female soldiers being sent home pregnant as routinely as letters is a real scandal and I can't imagine the furore if a group of men in the armed forces was able to demob themselves at will and did so to the tune of 19 percent of their numbers, which is what the Royal Navy suffers.

But I think the most telling point he has is about not women qua women, but modern women, who are clearly not the stuff their great grandmothers were.  Neither are the men the stuff their great grandmothers were either–never mind their grandfathers, but that's another matter.  I am always gobsmacked when I read proposals for Mars missions that assume that the crew will be made up entirely of delicate snowflakes unable to withstand any a hardships–and then advocates putting this load of Walter the Softies into a ship that's one system failure away from certain death.

I am forever reading hand-wringing reports about isolation and being out of communication that would have made a 1950s BAS crew, 19th century seamen, round the world yacht racers, lighthouse keepers, and any soldier billeted anywhere previous to 1990 screw up their eyes with complete incomprehension.  Isolation, boredom and danger are manageable.  What it requires is discipline (as in military or profound self); the ability to admit the difference between a solider, an explorer, a pioneer and a colonist; acknowledging that men and women are unique and different; and having the sanity of not mixing powder kegs and matches in the same hull.

Tin Pest

The bizarre way that tin behaves at low temperatures that might have did in Captain Scott's party. When your stockpile of paraffin cans are sealed with tin solder that turns to dust at -40° F it tends to put a damper on things.

Via Dark Roasted Blend.

And here's another example.

Cold butter

A 97-year old block of butter is found at Captain Scott's old base in Antarctica.

Big deal. I've got some in my fridge that's probably twice as old.

Antarctic payphone

This is one of those photos that really gives away one's age Actually, using "photo" instead of "image does the job just as well. So does using the word "screen" in front of a seven-year old in any context other than television or computer monitors, but that's another story. Okay, but what's so special about this particular pho... image? It's a payphone and the more erudite amongst you might also notice that it's the sort used in New Zealand, but so what? The answer is that it isn't in New Zealand, it's at McMurdo Station at the South Pole. More to the point, it's a payphone with a 911 sticker (where do the cops come from? Wellington?) and it's an unnerving demonstration of how far we've come in the realm of telecommunications.

I'm not a stranger to polar exploration. I've had an interest in the subject ever since seeing Scott of the Antarctic as a boy and as an archaeologist I've even had the privilege of having some small part in some work in Antarctica, but that was a long time ago and I often find it hard to believe how far things have come in the Worst Place on Earth. For obvious reasons, I still think of Antarctica as a place of rude huts, tunnels, and an overly ambitious geodesic dome–usually varying between plywood and horrible '70s decor and the whole thing smelling of fish and diesel. As for communications, that was the province of the unreliable radio shack where the operators wistfully talked about the new satellite station that they were going to get as soon as anyone could figure out how to get it to work at 50 below zero.

Fast forward to the 21st century and what do we get? Accommodations designed by honest to Gropius architects that have all sorts of greenery, no draughts, and are comfortable enough for the staff to import an embarassing number of condoms. As for communications, forget about wonky short wave or SSB links; it's Internet and phones in every room with a card payphone in the corridor for summer workers who are just passing through. I wouldn't be surprised if they have cell phone service at the Mountains of Madness, but frankly, I'm not very keen on finding out. "Hello, Marge? Yeah. I'm going to be a little late home tonight. Ran into some shoggoths here. Hell of a mess. Naw, McMurdo's sending in daisy cutters, so we're cool. Hey, I made a funny! Cool. Get it?"

Oh, God.

Not that i should be too surprised. Sir Arthur C Clarke was talking about payphones on space stations by 2001. We may not have those, but cardphones at the South Pole is a pretty good second.

What i find even more interesting is the handset flex. Notice that it's a light rubber and wore job and not one of those armoured coil things? Looks like the vandalism problem isn't too bad down there, though from what I've heard about some of the parties...

But that's for another story.

Beware of the Shaggoth

Cthulhu fhtagn!

An international expedition is exploring the Gamburtsev Range aka the Mountains of Madness.

Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn! What could possibly go wrong?

Too Much Time On Their Hands

McMundo (sic) (I think they mean McMurdo) base in the Antarctic, which has a winter crew of 125, has accepted a shipment of 16,500 condoms.

Shouldn't they be out looking for the city of the Elder Things or something?