On the next leg of our NSF Antarctic Artists & Writers project we flew to the Antarctic Dry Valleys from McMurdo. It is almost an hour helicopter ride across the ice shelf, and we hopped from site to site all day: landing at Lake Hoare for a moment to drop off someone and pick up Zach Sudman, a stream hydrologist who we spent most of the day with. We flew with Zach another 10 minutes to Lawson Stream – yes a flowing stream (from summer glacier melt) in the Taylor Valley. We video photographed Zach Sudman using surveying equipment to measure the height of the lake and the stream.
The space-for-time substitution approach provides a valuable empirical assessment to infer temporal effects of disturbance from spatial gradients. Applied to predict the response of different ecosystems under current climate change scenarios, it remains poorly tested in microbial ecology studies, partly due to the trophic complexity of the ecosystems studied. The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica represent a trophically simple polar desert projected to experience drastic changes in water availability under current climate change predictions. We used this ideal model system to develop and validate a microbial space-for-time sampling approach, using the variation of geochemical profiles that follow alterations in water availability and reflect past and future changes in the system. Our framework measured soil electrical conductivity, pH, and water activity in situ to geochemically define 17 space-for-time transects from the shores of four dynamic and two static Dry Valley lakes. We ident
When traveling to Antarctica with the United States Antarctic Program your thoughts on personal hygiene and safety must be amended to include some of th.
accumulates starts to spread out toward the edges of the continent, but the transantarctic mountains form a barrier. so the ice sheet hits the mountains and can t get through. the other thing is there are these really knarly winds that come off, and drop down into the plateau and then rush towards the edges of the continent gushing through these valleys. anthony: so it s a fluky micro climate here? michael: we call it the banana belt i of antarctica. it s warm, we re coastal. anthony: life at lake hoare, considering the limitations and the difficulties, is freakin luxurious by continental standards. out here, by the way, as everywhere on the continent, every bit of waste is separated and collected. one pee s in a bottle and pours it in the barrel, where it is eventually collected and shipped back to america. life here most definitely has its advantages. rae and her staff seem always to be making something delicious. homemade bread, scones, muffins appear throughout the day. toni
wall of ice right there, where it seems to have stopped short, pulled back, scraping up a beach on a frozen lake. here is one of the nsf s oldest and more legendary field camps, lake hoare. everything comes in by helicopter. the base here supports a small team of scientists and staff working on a variety of long term projects. it is, however, most legendary, for this woman: rae spain, the camp s manager whose been coming to lake hoare for 19 seasons. said to be the best cook on the continent. this, in an environment where so called freshies, the rare fresh vegetable, is spoken of in hushed tones of near fetishistic appreciation. staying over at lake hoare is a rare privilege enjoyed by few, like