Genie and Pearl at Work on the Antarctic Plateau by Ella Derbyshire

Nikon D80's

Amundsen and Scott reached the South Pole less than 100 years ago. There has been a permanent station of one form or another at the South Pole for half a century. Following "Old Pole" and The Dome, the new elevated station is actually the third science and support facility at the Pole.

Here we see a bit of the Antarctic Plateau that lies beyond the South Pole 10 meter Telescope. It is marked by a set of green flags, but otherwise it appears rather unremarkable. Underneath the flags are the remains of the first South Pole Station, which is known as Old Pole. Here you see us starting the excavation that will close the last known entrance to the buried facility.

We name the heavy equipment at Pole. The large dozer is D-7 named Pearl. The front end leader is Genie. Neither Pearl nor Genie work well in reallly cold temperatures. Somewhere around -50 degrees Fahrenhiet they'll stop dozing and loading in protest to the cold.

The 18 images of this panorama were photographed with a NNikon D 80 and stitched with Autopano Pro.