Many collegians bask in sunny, palm-fringed locales during winter breaks.
Not seven adventurous seniors at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who've just returned from nearly two months of research in the icy waters of Antarctica. In these pinched-times, even veteran scientists have trouble getting funding to work at the bottom of the world, but UCSB geophysicist Bruce P. Luyendyk, a firm believer in undergraduate participation in research, didn't let that stop him. The young scientists found it a very chilly pool, indeed though immensely enjoyable as well. It was here that scientists suspect New Zealand broke off from Antarctica in the split-up of the primordial continent known as Gondwanaland some 80 million years ago, but Luyendyk and his young colleagues wanted to find firm proof of that great geophysical divorce on the largely uncharted sea floor. They could monitor the recording instruments, compile the data, work the computers - do any number of the chores that are a routine part of a complex scientific expedition.