Okay, but a little update first. It’s less than a month. I leave the Ice in less than a month!! Overall, I’m excited; to see the people that I have been missing, to see nature other than rock, snow, and weird humans!! Yes, there are other things: seals, penguins, Skua, and whales. While this place has its magnificence, it’s also very monotoned!! But, living in this environment for five months will give me a new appreciation for green! And red and blue and purple. And trees and dogs and cats. It’s wild how many things that exist in the world don’t exist here. Especially color. Other than manmade objects things are tones of snow and dirt!!
It’s been a great experience here and I plan to come back. Life in the states is changing for me and that’s scary and exciting at the same time. New home, new city and lots of new excitement. Life may become six months home and six months away, time will tell. But the new prospective is a welcome appreciation.
Oh and we saw whales today!! Possibly a pod of False Killer Whales or Minke Whales. I’ll try to get better photos of them if I can!
Here are some cool Antarctica facts:
Antarctica has the world’s largest sand dune in a completely ice-free area — In the McMurdo Dry Valleys, there’s a massive sand dune standing about 70 meters (230 feet) high and over 200 meters (650 feet) wide. It’s formed by wind-sculpted sand in one of the driest places on Earth, resembling a desert feature on another planet.
The continent “sings” with eerie seismic hums — Scientists have recorded low-frequency “songs” or vibrations from ice shelves like the Ross Ice Shelf, caused by wind blowing across their rough surfaces. These inaudible-to-humans tones create a haunting, doleful hum that echoes through the ice.
Tiny nematode worms are the most abundant land animal — Forget penguins for a moment—the real champs of Antarctic terrestrial life are microscopic nematode worms, which thrive in the soil of ice-free areas and outnumber everything else on land by a huge margin.
Antarctica has more than 1,150 species of fungi — Despite the extreme cold and dryness, fungi (including mushrooms and yeasts) flourish here, often in surprising places like rocks, soils, and even inside Antarctic mosses—making it a biodiversity hotspot in an unexpected way. (Make that 1,151 cause I’m a fun guy too!)
The Magnetic South Pole is drifting away — Currently located off the Antarctic continent in the Southern Ocean (and moving about 5–10 km per year toward the sea), if you’re standing at the true Magnetic South Pole, every direction from you points north!
There are “watermelon snow” phenomena — In summer, certain snow algae (like Chlamydomonas nivalis) turn patches of snow bright pink or red, resembling spilled watermelon juice. This colorful bloom is common in places like King George Island and adds a surreal pop to the white landscape.
Antarctica was only accurately mapped in the 1980s — Due to its remoteness and ice cover, large parts remained poorly charted until radar and satellite tech improved. Before the mid-1980s, maps of the continent had major inaccuracies—some areas were better mapped on Mars than on Earth!
It has giant “ice rivers” called ice streams — These fast-moving rivers of ice (up to several km wide) flow at speeds of hundreds of meters per year toward the coast, carving through the ice sheet like hidden highways and playing a key role in how the continent loses mass.
The first human born on the continent was in 1978 — An Argentine boy named Emilio Marcos Palma was born at Esperanza Base on the Antarctic Peninsula, making him the first (and one of very few) people ever born in Antarctica—his family was part of Argentina’s effort to establish a presence there.
Antarctica experiences sudden stratospheric warmings — In events like one in 2025, temperatures in the upper atmosphere can spike by over 30°C in days due to atmospheric waves, temporarily altering weather patterns far below on the ice—showing even this frozen world has dynamic, surprising atmospheric behavior.
Pneuma’s Adventures 