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Face reader Mac Fulfer’s take on … Nowell Donovan, TCU Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs:
He has Einstein lines that show he has worked hard to develop his intellect and he has pumped iron with his left brain. More telling is the incredible vertical “freight train” line. It almost looks like someone buried a hatchet between his eyebrows and it shows his intensity. Through self-sacrifice and self-discipline he has forced himself to become so focused that once he makes up his mind, like a freight train, he will be hard to stop.
The diagonal lines on his forehead are mental pressure lines. He has coped with difficult situations and operated under situations that caused intense mental pressure.
The wide space between his eyebrows shows an innate self-will. From the time he was a child, if he made up his mind he was going to do something, he went for it.
He has managerial eyebrows and while he may be a little slow to take something on, once he says “yes,” you can count on him. His tangled eyebrows shows that he may ask probing questions like any good devil’s advocate.
The creases on the flange of his nose show that it is easier for him to give than receive.
His thin upper lip tells me he plays his emotional cards a little closer to the vest and keeps his personal life private. He is much better talking about what he does rather than about what he feels — though his gift-of-gab line certainly shows he can talk when he wants.
His jaws show that he has the tenacity of a bulldog and won’t give up easily. The vertical lines in his earlobes show he sets goals, accomplishes the goal then goes after a bigger goal.
Donovan’s reaction to Fulfer’s analysis: “The most convincing response came from my wife. She read Mac Fulfer’s analysis of my crackled visage and said, ‘He’s nailed you.’ When ‘she who must be obeyed’ confirms something, it must be true.”
Face reader Mac Fulfer’s take on … Darron Turner, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Inclusiveness and Intercultural Services:
He has small high ears and high eyebrows: The small ears show that he takes in information best when he sees it. His ear and eyebrow combination indicates that he takes in information quickly — you don’t have to explain it twice. But his eyebrows indicate he needs to be sure that it also feels right. His round eyebrows show that he is a people person.
Full, round cheeks make him a consensus builder who is capable of getting everyone on his bandwagon.
The overall shape of his face shows that he is a peacemaker capable of finding middle ground and straightening out difficulties between others, but he is no pushover, and if he is not consulted he may put up emotional walls.
His square chin tells me he goes all-out for his projects, goals and ideals. And he has high ideals. The beard gives him a gruffer external appearance than he internally feels. The tougher appearance can help keep others from taking advantage of him because he is a naturally kind hearted, easy-going type of guy.
His jaws show he has incredible tenacity. He is not a quitter, even when times get tough.
His broad nose announces that he is a natural provider. He is generous to a fault. His full lips show a warm personality and a natural expressiveness.
His nose tip turns down which says that he does not extend trust quickly. However, his healer cheeks will cause others to instantly feel that they can trust him. He would be an excellent trainer, therapist, coach or counselor because he has a face that others trust.
Turner’s take on Fulfer’s analysis: “For a person that I have never met, he was amazingly accurate. There were a couple of areas that I would disagree with, but for the most part his assessment was on the money. I guess to the trained eye our faces share more about us than we think.”
Face reader Mac Fulfer’s take on … Jesús Castro-Balbi, Associate Professor of Cello, TCU School of Music:
Here is another brilliant guy. His thick, even eyebrows reveal that not only is he a thinker, he sees all the related aspects quickly and easily. If you want to convince him of something, his straight eyebrows say that you will have to show him the facts, data and proof.
He has an almost mathematical mind coupled with high intuition. The extra hairs at the beginning of those magnificent eyebrows tell me that he has conscious access to his inner thoughts and feelings and can easily find pattern recognitions that come up for him as gut feelings.
And, he has learned to trust in his gut feelings, despite his factual preferences.
He has high ears and low eyebrows, meaning that he can be mentally intimidating in his field, simply because his mind chews on a problem.
He has an extremely quick mind and you can show him “A” and he can go straight to “Z.” If he has to deal with other people he should learn to slow down, repeat himself and give examples.
His nose reveals that he is self-reliant and prefers to control his own pace and style of work.
His Bambi eyelids give him natural charisma and make him approachable. In fact, he may even have strangers telling him more things than he cared to know, because his eyelids draw them out.
In this photo his eyelids don’t match. His right eyelid is hanging down a little more than his left, which indicates that he has been pushing himself in his professional life. His front teeth tell me he has a stubborn streak. He is not a flip-flopper.
Castro-Balbi’s take on Fulfer’s analysis: “What a fascinating world of unexpected interpretations of the person as revealed in one’s face! Thank you for taking the time to analyze my traits!”
Face reader Mac Fulfer’s take on … Jim Schlossnagle, Head coach, TCU Baseball:
The vertical line between his eyebrows is what I call a “freight train” line. This line indicates that he is intense. When he focuses on something he goes all out for it and lets nothing stop him. Like a freight train, once he is committed you should either get off his track or get on board, but don’t expect to stop him.
Low eyebrows show his quickness of mind. He can anticipate what people will say and may have had 10 thoughts on the topic while they were saying it.
His deep set eyes mean that even though he may look relaxed and laid back, he is aware of everything around him. However, don’t think that if he is nodding his head while you are talking that he is agreeing with everything you are saying.
His thin nose tells me that he is self-reliant and self-sufficient. If asked if he needs help he will most often decline, even if he could have used some help. However, his large nostrils are the mark of a generous spirit who is ready to help the other person.
He is working too hard. Those droopy upper eyelids say that he has been giving more of his life energy and life force to everything else.
His thin upper lip tells me he is a very private person that plays his emotional cards close to the vest. However, if he ever tells you something, you can take it to the bank.
In his professional — or business side (the right side of his face) — he has a managerial eyebrow, thin at the beginning and getting larger toward the outside of his face. Once he takes something on, it is done.
Schlossnagie’s take on Fulfer’s analysis: “xxxxxxxxxxx.”
Face reader Mac Fulfer’s take on … German Gutierrez, Director of Orchestral Studies, TCU School of Music:
His forehead says that he gets whatever he goes after. His broad cheeks tell me he has energy for the long haul. His major power dimples say that he is an exhorter who lifts others up by encouraging them. It is also why people seem to instantly like him.
He also has a gift of gab line (line down his cheek, under his chin and up the other side) and can talk the paint off the walls once he gets started.
He also has healer cheeks (space by side of his eyes) and surrounds himself with an aura of nurturing, healing and uplifting.
The grooves on his nose tell me at an earlier time in his personal life he was cut off from support. His reaction was to decide if he wanted anything he would get it for himself. It is probably easier for him to give than receive.
His big chin says that he is rugged and he can take it on the chin. He is not afraid of competition and feels that if he is given a level playing field that he is just as good as anyone else. The roundness of his chin says when he acts on his idea he puts people first.
The little ball on the tip of his nose indicates that he inherited a creative or artistic gene.
The compassion line on the left side of his face (from the corner of the mouth to the chin) tells me that he has experienced intense grief, loss or pain. I call those lines compassion lines. When he comforts someone and says, “I know exactly how you feel,” he does, and the other person knows that he does. They can feel his sincerity. It is plainly written on his face.
Gutierrez’s take on Fulfer’s analysis: “I am very amazed by the reading of my facial features by Mac Fuller. His comments about my difficult times some years ago are correct. I spent some years desperately looking for support to continue with my musical studies abroad. I am also very flattered by his kind remarks and am, once again, amazed by his reading.”
Face reader Mac Fulfer’s take on … Wendy Davis ’90, Senator, Texas State District 10:
Her Bambi eyelids may make her feel like someone tattooed on her forehead, “Please tell me all your personal problems,” because others open up and respond to those big eyelids. This same trait allows her to cut to the bottom line.
She can reduce conversations to the essentials. Her eyelids also say she is very loyal in relationships and expects the same in return. Her gift is her ability to develop a network of loyal, lasting relationships.
Her winged eyebrows show she is best on the planning committee, seeing all the big ideas and possibilities. Her high eyebrows and low ears indicate she is a natural strategist. She is good at developing the long-range plan or goal. With her low ears, she can’t be stampeded into a decision and prefers wisdom over speed — with some perfectionist tendencies. She listens carefully and wants to make sure that she gets it right.
The fact that her septum hangs lower than her nostrils means her career path is best fulfilled by working in service of others.
She has a round chin, which says that when she acts on her ideas, she puts people first. The fact that she has a large chin means that she can take it on the chin.
The line running down her cheeks and under her chin is a “gift of gab” line. She can talk the birds out of the trees if she is so inclined.
Finally, the wide space between her eyebrows is the mark of innate self will. She is not a flip-flopper. If she decides that she is going to do or not do something, it will be very difficult to get her to change her mind without giving her solid proof that she was wrong.
Davis’s take on Fulfer’s analysis: “xxxxxxxxxxx.” (Still to come)
Face reader Mac Fulfer’s take on … Tejay Johnson ’12, All-American and First-team All-Mountain West Conference safety:
He has warrior cheeks and can go the distance. Coupled with his big square chin, he is a person who is not afraid of competition and goes all out for his goals. Like a Super Ball, if he gets knocked down he bounces right back up.
The low bridge on his nose is the mark of a team player and one who wants to make a contribution to the team. He would not do well working by himself in a cubicle in a back room.
The wide base of his nose indicates he is a natural provider, and he puts a broad umbrella of support over those he bonds and connects with.
Since his nose tip turns down, he does not extend trust quickly or easily. His approach is, “Show me, then I will believe you.”
Small irises reveal that he is sensitive and may be almost allergic to anyone raising their voice or yelling at him.
Hidden upper eyelids indicate that he is focused like a laser beam, when he puts his attention on something he can almost tune the rest of the world out. However, he needs his own personal space, and in relationships he needs someone who does not try to control him, smother him or tie him down.
The wide space between his eyebrows is the mark of someone with an iron will. Once he decides to do something, he is hard to stop.
Excess hairs at the start of his left eyebrow show he is a quick judge of character and can size someone up in just a few minutes.
Full lips make him a natural communicator with a warm personality.
Johnson’s take on Fulfer’s analysis: “In regard to the face reading, I agree with some things that were stated. I feel that most of them are all my characteristics and some were my characteristics in the past, such as the yelling part. All in all, I like the reading and feel that it was accurate.”
Face reader Mac Fulfer’s take on … Mac Fulfer ’71, Amazing Face Reading:
I have those horizontal Einstein lines on my forehead, showing that at some point in my life I pumped iron with my left brain. However, they are broken lines, which shows that I have a wide range of interests and that I am curious about a lot of different things. The diagonal lines on my forehead are mental pressure lines that I got while I was practicing law and working with court docket deadlines.
The horizontal line across the bridge of my nose is a burnout line. I felt better after I discovered that Mohandas Gandhi also had a burnout line. He too had once been a lawyer before he became a spiritual teacher.
I have close-set cheeks that says that I don’t have a lot of patience for working with slow people, and I am always rushing to get things done. I can’t even mow the yard slowly.
My power dimples are the deep vertical lines on my cheeks. They indicated that I am an exhorter who wants to acknowledge others and encourage their efforts and try and lift them up and show them my appreciation.
The thin upper lip indicates that I am emotionally guarded.
I have small high ears and low eyebrows, which reveal that I take in information quickly and process quickly. However, I have to be careful to slow down and even be willing to repeat myself so I don’t mentally run off and lose my listener.
My ears are in at the tops and out at the bottom. For most of my life they stuck straight out like two taxi cab doors left hanging open, but when I started practicing law, I had to learn how to negotiate and compromise. When I changed professions, my ears changed. Now, they are what I would call diplomatic ears, someone who can fund middle ground and talk on their feet without a script.
The lines on the side of my nose are humor lines and expose a person who has an impish sense of humor and who likes to have fun.
My angled eyebrows say that I stay mentally in control, but my round chin says that when I get down to acting on my thoughts, I put people first.
My eyelids are also hanging down a bit, which says that I am pushing myself too hard. I must admit that I never thought I would still be working as much as I am at this stage of my life, but I enjoy what I do so much that it is hard to make myself slow down.
Before firebombs rained from the sky in Japan during World War II, words of warning dropped from the heavens.
A series of U.S. air raids in the spring and summer of 1945 inflicted heavy damage on one Japanese city after another. But a U.S. Navy campaign involving a young language officer and three Japanese prisoners of war helped curb civilian casualties in Japan in the deadly final months of the war.
Paul F. Boller Jr., TCU Emeritus Professor of history, was the Guam-based Navy language officer who supervised the creation of a series of U.S. propaganda leaflets dropped over Japan in advance of B-29 air strikes. The two-sided documents called for Japanese surrender on one side, and on the other urged the evacuation of civilians in cities identified as possible bombing targets.
“The true heroes were at the front,” says the 94-year-old Boller. “They are the ones who deserve to be honored. Still, I felt like I did a little something. It did save lives. I felt some pleasure in that.”
After all this time, Boller is receiving attention for his part in history. He will appear on an upcoming episode of “History Detectives” that focuses on some recently uncovered World War II propaganda leaflets. The show aired on June 28 but will run again on Sept. 13 on most PBS stations. Or you can see it online at pbs.org/video.
Host Wes Cowan and a camera crew came to TCU in December to film an interview with Boller.
“I don’t know how much I’ll be featured on the show,” Boller says. “Maybe they’ll just get a fleeting look at me.”
In the episode, Cowan and company will delve into the origins of a collection of recently uncovered WW II propaganda leaflets. It turns out that the leaflets Cowan and his crew showed to Boller were produced at a U.S. Navy base in Honolulu.
The leaflets produced in Hawaii were quite different from the ones Boller worked on in Guam. For one thing, the Honolulu-produced leaflets depicted graphic images of death and destruction. Moreover, the Honolulu leaflets called for Japan’s surrender but offered no warnings aimed at protecting Japanese civilians from harm.
“The one I worked on had the effort to save some civilians’ lives,” Boller says. “I couldn’t find any other leaflet drops in the war — not in Europe, either — that provided for the possibility of avoiding civilian casualties.”
Boller arrived at the Commander in Chief Pacific (CINCPAC) Fleet Headquarters in early 1945 feeling dejected. He had wanted to experience the rush of being a battlefield translator. Instead, he was reporting for yet another desk job.
Boller was a history graduate student at Yale in 1942 when a recruiter persuaded him to enroll in the Navy Japanese School at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He completed the intensive yearlong course and became an ensign in the Navy Reserve. Boller was assigned as a language officer in Pearl Harbor, where it was his job to read over recovered Japanese materials to search for valuable intelligence.
He performed his duties admirably at Pearl Harbor and was picked to serve as a linguist on the front lines of Iwo Jima. Boller envisioned playing hero by prying military secrets from Japanese captives or finding and translating key Japanese battle plans. However, his superiors decided at the last minute that Boller was needed instead at CINCPAC Headquarters in Guam. His new assignment carried the seemingly glamorous title of senior translator in the language section of the Advance Intelligence Center. But it was mostly a mundane position filled with hours of combing through recovered Japanese military manuals and geography books and finding nothing of importance.
“It sounds crazy, but it was a disappointment,” says Boller, who described himself as an isolationist who had come around to the view that Nazi Germany and the Japan’s militarist regime needed to be defeated at all costs. “I knew some translators from Boulder who got to serve as translators in combat, and I was young and wanted to do it.”
Luckily for Boller, his direct superior in Guam, Lt. Frank Huggins, allowed him to slip away from the office on slow work days and trudge several miles to the Japanese prisoner stockade. Boller’s visits with the prisoners were not just opportunities to gather intelligence but a chance to practice his conversational Japanese.
An early attempt to chat with a Japanese officer went poorly. Boller greeted the prisoner in Japanese, but the man refused to converse with an American officer in his native tongue. “Speak English,” the officer scolded in a heavy accent. He then proceeded to berate Boller in Japanese.
Other prisoners proved more cooperative. Boller soon made the acquaintance of a number of Japanese POWs, including Maj. Yanagi, a physicist from Tokyo who desperately wanted the war to end so he could return home to his wife and three teenaged daughters.
Boller’s contacts in the stockade proved vital. In April 1945, Lt. Cmdr. Robert Morris, a specialist in psychological warfare, asked Boller to round up some prisoners who might be willing to help on a propaganda leaflet campaign. Morris needed the POWs to translate the propaganda messages from English into Japanese.
“I could have probably translated them myself, but they wouldn’t have been authentic,” Boller says. “They just wouldn’t have.”
Boller was placed in charge of supervising Yanagi and two other acquaintances from the stockade to make certain they transcribed the messages correctly and did not try any funny business. The POWs assured Boller they would work hard and follow instructions. Indeed, two of the prisoners worked diligently each week translating the words.
The other prisoner, an artistic young man, concentrated on writing out the completed messages in beautiful brush-stroke characters.
“They were convinced Japan could not win,” says Boller, who worked alongside the POWs inside a Quonset hut decked out like an office. “And if these leaflets got the war through sooner, that was OK with them.”
Every weekend, Boller called a friend in the Air Force who had the scoop on where the next week’s raids were likely to happen. Instead of identifying the exact locations, the leaflets would list eight or 10 cities that were possible targets. B-29 pilots then dropped the leaflets over potential target cities during routine runs to survey weather conditions.
The leaflet campaign continued through July. But something changed the first week of August. Boller’s Air Force contact suddenly had no info to pass along. “They must be up to something special,” Boller’s contact said.
A few days after that unusual phone conversation, Boller traveled to the island of Saipan, which along with Guam was part of the Marianas — a strategically important island chain within easy bombing range of Japan. He was there to help coax a Japanese officer hiding out in a cave to surrender peacefully. But Boller learned shortly after arrival that an atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima.
“When I heard about the atom bomb, I was filled with depression,” Boller says. “War is bad enough. Now we have this?”
Boller quickly boarded a plane back to Guam. Once there, he and the POWs assembled in the Quonset hut to craft a dire message imploring the Japanese to surrender or risk another atomic bomb attack. The prisoners went diligently, but calmly, about their task of creating a leaflet warning their fellow Japanese citizens about a weapon they called “genshi bakudan.”
Conversing in Japanese with the prisoners, Boller professed his uneasiness over this new era of nuclear warfare the world had just entered.
“This genshi bakudan is some bad stuff,” Boller says, recalling the conversation. “They said, ‘You mean it’s real?’ I find it so interesting that they prepared the leaflets even though they didn’t believe the weapon existed.”
It indeed existed. Three days after the Hiroshima bombing, genshi bakudan was unleashed again — this time over Nagasaki. Emperor Hirohito knew it was time to give up the fight. Japan formally surrendered Aug. 15, 1945.
The war was over, but Boller still had work to do. He was first sent to the Mariana island of Rota, 40 miles north of Guam, where 3,000 Japanese soldiers remained. In Rota, he served as interpreter for a ceremony in which surrendering Japanese officers would be asked to hand their samurai swords over to a battalion of Marines. Boller opened the proceedings by declaring in Japanese, “In the name of the United States, we take possession of this island.”
“It was one of those moments when I thought to myself, ‘Did I really just say that?’” Boller says.
After Rota, Boller spent six months in Japan as part of the U.S. occupation. He worked in Tokyo for the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, translating documents that revealed the effects of the U.S. firebombing campaign on the Japanese war effort. Boller also interrogated police, municipal government officials and members of the former War Ministry. The first time he learned of the direct effects of the leaflet campaign was during an interview with the mayor of Hachioji, a Tokyo suburb.
The mayor told him that B-29s dropped hundreds of leaflets one week, warning of possible raids to come. The mayor gave residents permission to evacuate if they wanted to, and most did. A few days later, the town was leveled by firebombs. Of those who read the leaflets but chose to stay, 360 were killed.
While in Tokyo, Boller visited the home of his physicist friend. Yanagi was still presumably in U.S. custody, but Boller had a chance to speak to the prisoner’s wife. He told her he had seen her husband recently: “He is in good health. And he will be coming home soon.”
Excitedly, she repeated his words: “He is in good health. He will be home soon.” She invited Boller to dinner and spread word of her husband’s whereabouts to friends and neighbors. They all greeted Boller with a paraphrase of his own words (“He is in good health. He will return soon.”), but they never asked any further questions.
As far as Boller knows, Yanagi and the two other POWs he collaborated with did return home safely. As for Boller, he returned home to serve a brief stint as a translator for U.S. Naval Intelligence in Washington, D.C. before resuming his academic career in 1946.
He wrote about his time in the Navy in a 1992 book, Memoirs of an Obscure Professor and Other Essays (available at the TCU library). But it was not until recently that Boller began to wonder just how much of an impact the leaflets he worked on had on sparing civilians’ lives.
“If I was younger, I would go back to Japan and research it,” Boller says. “I can’t think of another time when this was done.”
He can at least rest easy knowing that, in the heat of battle, he and his superior officers — and some willing volunteers from the opposing forces — never lost sight of the value of innocent lives.
“I hate war so much,” Boller says. “At least I was able to do something decent.”
Each year, a select group of scientists stock up on pasta, pack up their parkas and get up-to-date on their dental work. Then they head to Antarctica and spend six weeks collecting more than a thousand meteorites.
Dubbed the Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET), this year’s group included Rhiannon Mayne, assistant professor of geology and curator of TCU’s Monnig Meteorite Collection.
“The two biggest places we get meteorites from nowadays are the desert in North Africa and in Antarctica because they’re relatively easy to find. In Antarctica you get a real concentration of them — we found 1,200 in the six weeks we were there.”
It wasn’t until 1969, when Japanese glaciologists discovered nine meteorites in a relatively small area of Antarctica, that scientist began to see the frozen terrain as a rich treasure trove. The United States teams started collecting specimens in 1976, working out of the McMurdo Station, a U.S. research center operated by the National Science Foundation.
Mayne, a native of Northhamptonshire, U.K., who did her undergraduate work at the University of Edinburgh, heard about the program when she was a graduate student at the University of Tennessee. Attending a presentation at the annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, she was intrigued when Ralph Harvey, the Case Western Reserve University professor who heads the effort, called his team, “the dogcatchers of the meteorite world.”
“That’s because the team has no priority for the meteorites they collect,” she says. “They all go to the U.S. National Meteorite collection.”
After earning her doctorate, Mayne went to work for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of History, where part of her job was classifying the meteorites collected in Antarctica.
“I felt like I’d seen all angles of this process, apart from collecting,” she said. “I’d classified them and used them in my research — now I really wanted to collect them.”
Mayne joined the TCU faculty in the fall of 2009 and continued to work on getting to Antarctica. She got the go-ahead for the 2011 trip and began intense preparations that included a battery of medical tests checking for potential issues such as high cholesterol and impacted wisdom teeth.
“Most people who go to Antarctica have their wisdom teeth out because that’s not something they would want to take you out of the field for,” she says. “I’d had mine out in preparation for the trip so it wasn’t a problem.”
She also had to go grocery shopping. Because Mayne has a gluten allergy, she had to mail three boxes filled with gluten-free mac and cheese and pasta in September, to arrive in time for the January expedition.
In November, the team flew to Christchurch, New Zealand, where they gathered more supplies before making the 2,500-mile flight to McMurdo Station, Antarctica’s largest “city,” with a seasonal population of more than 1,000 researchers and support staff. There they attended “survivor school” and learned the basic of operating a Ski-Doo snowmobile.
Mayne said she quickly adjusted to the temps, which reached a balmy 40-degrees Fahrenheit in January, and her new routine, but also felt like she’d been transported to an alternative universe.
“Being in Antarctica is like you’re completely detached from the reality you normally live in,” Mayne said. “It’s its own little town. It’s a very weird experience, it’s very hard to describe.”
One of the hardest adjustments was having sunlight 24 hours a day.
“You’d go into buildings where there was a coffee shop or wine bar, and you’d go in and have a nice cup of coffee or glass of wine before you go to bed. You’d emerge at 11 p.m. or even midnight, and it’d still be as bright as when you emerged from this dark building,” she said.
“You felt like you’d been there all night, and it was the next morning.”
After a week or so, the team prepared to move into the field, where they split up into two groups and began searching for meteorites. Mayne said life in the field brought new challenges, including having to chip off blocks of ice to melt whenever she wanted to drink, cook or bathe.
She and her roommate Inge Loes ten Kate of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center lit a fire to keep the tent warm in temperatures that dipped to minus-40 degrees Fahrenheit. Some people wore a sleeping mask to shut out the constant sun.
“I was amazed at how comfortable it was,” Mayne said. “You say you’re camping in Antarctica and everyone thinks that you’re crazy, but overall it’s pretty comfortable. It’s not bad — other than the toilet facilities.”
Those “facilities” included a designated “poo tent.”
“I really appreciated the sound of a flushing toilet when I got back home,” she added.
Mayne spent her days searching for blue ice, or icy areas known to be rich in meteorites.
As meteorites fall from space, they are incorporated into growing piles of snow and ice, but over time the ice sags under its own weight. On the shore, it can break into icebergs that can sink to a watery grave, but inland the ice hits mountain ranges where it’s exposed to dry winds.
As the ice evaporates, the meteorites rise to the surface and begin to pile up.
“You’re looking at all the meteorites coming out of that ice sheet and you also get this blue ice, which is key because it’s very difficult to find meteorites in an area where it’s going to snow, you just want to be looking on ice,” Mayne said.
“In some areas there are terrestrial rocks as well, so you’ve got to be able to pick out the meteorites,” Mayne said. “In other areas, there are just meteorites.”
The largest meteorite the team found was not quite football size. The smallest was the size of a pea.
While she loved the thrill of finding meteorites, she had to get used to the close confines of the camp, where she spent six weeks in the company of seven other people.
“They are the only people you see and we were there for Christmas on the ice, we were there for New Year’s on the ice,” she said, noting the only other contact was when supplies arrived. “Towards the end, a re-supply came in and brought a large group of people from a bigger camp — 10 or so people — and that was the most people we’d seen for five or so weeks. Which is weird. I thought, ‘Oh wow, people. I can interact with somebody new!’ You get used to that little insular life pretty quickly.”
Mayne said when she left Antarctica and landed in New Zealand, she realized it had been eight weeks since she had heard the sounds of birds or smelled flowers.
“After being in Antarctica, the rest of the world was a bit overwhelming,” she added.
Now back on campus, she’s looking forward to incorporating her Antarctic work into her class lectures. This fall, she’s teaching an introductory geology class and “Evolution and Exploration of the Solar System.”
“It’s very important to let students know how meteorites are classified and how they’re found, and now I can bring both those aspects into the classroom,” she said. “But it is also important to show students what you can do with geology and what you can do with interplanetary science.”
“I felt like I’d seen all angles of this process, apart from collecting,” she said. “I’d classified them and used them in my research — now I really wanted to collect them.”
Mayne said she quickly adjusted to the temps, which reached a balmy 40-degrees Fahrenheit in January, and her new routine, but also felt like she’d been transported to an alternative universe.
Those “facilities” included a designated “poo tent.”
Mayne said when she left Antarctica and landed in New Zealand, she realized it had been eight weeks since she had heard the sounds of birds or smelled flowers.