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Stepping off the plane in Antarctica, the first thing Cristina Millan noticed was the natural beauty of the untouched landscape.

Millan first marveled at the brightness of the sky, the smoking volcano Mt. Erebus, the contrast between black mountain rocks and glaring white snow.

"Immediately the next thing you feel is the cold," Millan says. "Everything outside freezes, cameras do not work well, and batteries do not last. Clothes freeze in the tent during the night so everything needs to go inside your sleeping bag. Your breath condenses around your sleeping bag and inside the tent, and when you move, snow 'rains' all over you."

Millan, a Ph.D. student, and Terry Wilson, an Ohio State professor of geology, spent three months studying samples of core extracted from the earth in Antarctica as part of the ANDRILL project, an international collaboration of scientists working to obtain a long-term climate record.

"We have very few records that come directly from Antarctica, where essentially the action was happening," says Wilson. "The ice was advancing and retreating in response to these climate trends. We're trying to obtain those records."

Wilson has been to Antarctica 15 times since coming to Ohio State in the late 1980s, always bringing students along to assist in her research. In addition to her university duties, she is chairwoman of ANDRILL's U.S. steering committee and has helped recruit top geologists from around the world to participate in ANDRILL research.

“The working relationship with my advisor was unbelievable. We had a great time. We worked 12 hours, we laughed, we joked, and I learned a lot from her.”
—Cristina Millan

In Antarctica, Millan and Wilson worked the night shift, spending about 12 hours each day to study fractures and features in 1,200 meters of core samples pulled from the earth.

"The working relationship with my advisor was unbelievable. We had a great time. We worked 12 hours, we laughed, we joked, and I learned a lot from her," says Millan.

"I had worked with pieces of core before, for my undergraduate thesis," says Millan. "For me to go to Antarctica and see the whole picture--now I have the context, I have seen where these slivers of core come from, and it has a broader impact for me. I can understand better the whole picture, and that is not something that all of us are exposed to."

So many polar researchers are affiliated with the university in some way that non-Buckeyes sometimes jokingly refer to them as "the Mafia." Ten of about 50 ANDRILL researchers this year have Ohio State ties, Wilson says.

"It's a pretty remarkable cohort of the project," she says. "Byrd Polar Research Center and its predecessor, the Institute of Polar Studies have really been leaders in polar research. People who got their Ph.D.s through the center and through Ohio State University have continued to lead projects such as the drilling projects."

Some video material provided by Megan Berg, Media Specialist, ANDRILL Science Management Office, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

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