This page will have answers to questions that the SOC (Student Oceanography Club) members send to the researchers while they are in the Antarctic.

Please check back to see what they ask and our answers. First round of Questions (Thank you!)

1. What factors were used in deciding where to place the sewage pipe at McMurdo Sound?

In the big picture, the McMurdo Station site was chosen for the same reasons that Robert Falcon Scott chose this as a location to build a hut 100 years ago - this is the farthest south one can go in a ship, the farthest south that open water is available. For us today, this means that the large cargo vessel that comes here once a year to resupply the station can get into Winter Quarters Bay to offload. On a smaller scale, as far as I can tell the buildings that make up McMurdo Station were put up in a rather haphazard arrangement. The pipe runs straight offshore from the water plant, the shortest route. It was luck that we put one of our sampling stations exactly where they eventually built the pipe to.

2. Is there enough current and turbulent flow to disperse the sewage outfall at McMurdo Sound?

The flow near the outfall rarely exceeds 10 cm/s. Very little of the solid material remains suspended in the water for very long, or drifts very far. Thus, there is a large "pile" that is locally known as Mt. Charmin off the outfall pipe. Part of what we are studying down here is how long it will take for this pile to disappear through natural processes. It is actually good that there is little current flow, as it means that the area that is impacted is rather small.