November 28, 1996

Ventifact Boulder Taylor Valley

Paul Langevin is from Jasper, Alberta. A biologist who studied at the University of Calgary, with a background in mountaineering, he has worked in the park service and found his way down here to work with Andrew Fountain, the Principal Investigator, on the LTER glacier study--monitoring and measuring glacier mass balance, melt and energy balance. Paul has a wonderful, offbeat sense of humour and a generous spirit. So, when he offered to have me tag along while he made the rounds of his study area on the top of the Taylor Glacier, I jumped at the opportunity. A few days earlier, he had arranged to have me fly out to the Taylor, where he said I just might hear some extraordinary sounds. Furthermore, he mentioned a place which he called "Singing Rocks" at the terminus of the Hughes Glacier above Lake Bonney. Sitting around the hut one afternoon, Paul showed me a series of black and white photographs of ventifacts--large boulders which had been sculpted by the wind into fantastical shapes. In a good wind, edge tones might be heard... It was certainly worth a visit on the way back from Taylor. After a leisurely breakfast, we packed and at 10:00am Rich whisked us up the the valley by helo. It was clearing and Rich was happy to be flying again after losing a couple of days due to inclement weather.

We passed over the route I had hiked the day before and along the far side of the Suess Glacier, over Mummy Pond, past the Matterhorn, Lacroix and Matterhorn Glaciers and Lake Bonney, where the limnologist group had their camp. Rounding the Bonney Riegel, a promontory thrust into the head of the lake, we could see the tip of the glacial expanse that is the Taylor Glacier. Blood Falls was immediately apparent--an iron-rich deposit at the terminus of the glacier. Its orange and red colour was a powerful contrast to the surrounding monochrome scheme. We touched down near a cairn by Blood Falls; Rich had a few errands to run and would be back in several hours to pick us up. Paul and I offloaded our survival bag, backpacks, ice auger drill and crampons. As the dust settled, we came up with a plan. Paul had to plant a few stakes--bamboo poles with a green flag--and take some photographs from a viewing station, where glacier movement could be visually documented. He had heard some interesting sounds around the terminus.

Paul Langevin	Breakfast at Lake Hoare Camp
Aerial view of the Suess Glacier	Blood Falls

While Paul climbed up to the top to get his work done, I decided to set up a hydrophone and record in a frozen glacial pond that was situated about halfway up the glacier front, behind a ridge of moraine. Paul tested the ice and helped get me oriented; it was an otherworldly corner of the universe, as suggested by the patterns of erosion on the ice around me. I settled in to record and watched Paul, bearing his flags, march off around the terminus. The hydrophone was placed in the frozen pond about 6 inches into the water; the ice was only about 1/2 and inch thick, where I had broken through (see diagram).

Paul tests the ice

Recording diagram

Everything seemed quiet and I was prepared for a tranquil afternoon of sparse, singular events: a nice piece of ice breaking off or, if I was lucky, perhaps the booming explosion of calving ice. I was stunned to hear what unfolded over the next few hours...the quotidian drama of glacial movement is not measured in big bangs, but in the discrete choruses of squeaking, popping and whistling that occur all over the glacier--a series of intertwined ostinati that play continuously as tension builds and is released. The "overtures" are only occasionally heard, but the music never stops. I could hear the surface of the pond expanding and contracting and well as glacial meltwater running underneath the ice, pushing pebbles and sand in the moraine. From time to time a deeper tympanum sound would travel from within the recesses of the structure.

Click to listen to a sample of the sounds of the Taylor Glacier.

Time flew by and, through my headphones, I could hear Paul's footsteps through the ice. His work was finished and he descended with his gear. He was equally stunned when I played some of what I had recorded. We packed up and returned to Blood Falls just in time to be picked up by the helo.

Paul tests the ice

Blood River...another view

Rich had a few hours to kill between dropping us off and working the next leg of his flight schedule, so he was happy to set down at the terminus of the Hughes Glacier for a break and explore the "Singing Rocks" with us. When faced with something new or unfamiliar, we tend to model and seek out in analogies to that which we know. Nothing quite prepared me for the spectacle of sculptured stones that had been rolled, pushed and laid to rest halfway up the valley walls. These ventifacts were aeolian shaped wonders, randomly distributed on a slight incline at the end of the Hughes. For me they conjured a sculpture garden, with works by Moore, Naguchi and a phantasmagoria of architectonic suggestions by Gaudi. A gentle breeze wafted over us and I realized that these rocks could indeed "sing." The wind would have to be a great deal more forceful, however, to be heard. As we ambled through all manner of shapes, Paul noted that the wind had worn certain rocks to within less than 1/4 of an inch. When hit, they produced a series of indeterminant pitches which would resonate through the structure of the stone. So, I immediately set up a couple of contact microphones and we played away, with delicate finger taps...drumming at the edge of the earth!

Hughes Glacier and the "Singing Rocks"

Paul jams on resonant rocks

Click to listen to a sample of drumming on ventifacts.

In the distance, across the valley, we could see Mount J.J. Thomson. The three of us explored for a bit and Paul and Rich hammed it up for the camera. Close to 4:00pm, we boarded the helo and made for Lake Hoare camp.

Mt. J. J. Thomson with ventifact in the foreground

Paul and Rich

Meanwhile, back at camp Ray, Emily and Nate had returned from a successful field trip to Lake Fryxell and were storing samples in the field laboratory huts. Dale, Peter, Ian and Rob looked like they finally had a dive hole set for the next day. Everyone began to gather for the evening. Paula was on a roll with cooking and she even surprised herself with a delicious scallop and shrimp pasta dish saturated with garlic and wine wine. Nate, whose mother was getting remarried at the weekend, was trying to get an outside telephone link to the US. Most of the time it can be done from Lake Hoare. Nate, whose own wedding plans are coming together for August 9, 1997 calls is fiancee, Denise, from time to time. The wonders of technology...this evening, however, he was having a hard time getting through.

The sky had cleared and the sun was streaming down the valley and onto the Canada Glacier. The subtle sounds of melting water and little rivulets could be heard and I made for the edge of the ice. This time, I set up my hydrophone by boring a 3 foot by 2 inch hole into the apron of the glacier terminus. The apron ice is a region of varying thickness projecting from the base of the glacier, a contiguous extension. The percpetive I was seeking was slightly different from what I had tried earlier in the day at Taylor, so I was curious to hear what would come of it. The sun had been blazing for several hours already and sounds of melt and cracking were audible on the surface. It was warm out, somewhere in the mid 20s, and I found nice sandy spot in the moraine to sit back and listen for a few hours.

The generator was cut off at about 11:30pm and I fell sound asleep in my tent, exhausted from the day's excitement.

Around Lake Hoare	Lake Hoare laboratories
Paula Adkins, Camp Chef!	Doug's tent