|
|
| 2001 Team |
Mark Wumkes
Drilling Specialist
As a drilling specialist on the 2000-2001 trans-Antarctica expedition, Mark Wumkes' primary responsibility is operating an electromechanical drill to produce 3-4 inch diameter ice core samples. Mark brings a wealth of experience to this specific task and to the expedition team, both in the wide variety of skills he possesses and his 25-year history of adventuring and working in remote regions.
Before leaving for a long field season, Mark usually finds himself in a personal dilemma. He thoroughly enjoys the intellectual interaction with the scientists, the challenge of producing ice cores in extreme conditions and the contribution he makes to the study of global climate; his departure, however, requires separating from the Alaskan lifestyle he values. Mark lives north of Fairbanks in a cedar-clad house surrounded by a picturesque birch forest. The second "home" on this property is a large shop in which all manner of fabrication, mechanical wizardry and woodworking takes place. Every Wednesday night friends gather at the shop for Project Night. Thursdays the shop becomes the practice hall for the Skidmarks, a favorite local blues band Mark fronts with vocals and harp. Leaving Fairbanks for months at a time would be easier if Mark could take his 16 year old gray cat, Bonkers, with him.
Mark has a long and varied history of seeking adventure for personal fulfillment and intellectual challenge. When he decided to move from North Dakota to Alaska his choice of transportation was a canoe, which he paddled through some 4000 miles of Canadian and Alaskan waterways. In the mid-80's, while on a climbing trip in the Alaska Range with a friend, Mark became curious about moulins, the large drain holes formed in glaciers by melting water during the summer months. Over the next several winters he plumbed the depths of these frozen glacial caverns.
In addition to the remote locations mountaineering and ocean kayaking take him, Mark thinks he is fortunate to be able to travel to and work on impressively large sheets of ice around the world. His experience in Alaska includes research on the Columbia Glacier with California Institute of Technology and the Black Rapids Glacier with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. His first two trips to Greenland were with the U.S. Navy for a project on the sea ice off the northeast coast. In his years of work with Polar Ice Coring Office his primary focus was as chief driller for the Greenland Ice Sheet Project, which resulted in 250,000 years of climactic history captured in ice core samples. This will be Mark's fourth trip to Antarctica. He has drilled at Upstream B, Byrd Station and Siple Dome.
Mark enjoys sharing his knowledge and tales of his experiences with elementary and high school students. While the students tend to be most curious about the adventurous aspects of his work, his own perspective is quite pragmatic. "Performance is everything," he emphatically states. For Mark, that means producing high quality ice cores; his contribution to the on-going efforts to understand global climate.
