Today Mike and I hiked up another elevation transect to measure changes in soil chemistry with increasing elevation. So we are very tired again! We crossed some snow drifts that had very pretty patterns in the surface:

Another project we are doing in this area is testing whether adding nutrients to the soil affects the microbes and animals living there. Carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus are very important nutrients for most living things. These nutrients move through the soil very slowly here, because it is so cold and dry. We want to know what will happen if there are more of these nutrients in the soil to be used by organisms. So, last year we added carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus to different plots of soil. Now, a year later, Mike and I measured how much carbon dioxide is being produced by the living things in those plots. Just like with people, when the microscopic organisms in the soil breathe, carbon dioxide is produced. If there is more carbon dioxide produced when nutrients have been added, we know they are breathing more. They would breathe more if they're more active. The same happens with people. If you eat a good, nutritious meal, you'll be more active. You might run or play more. Getting that extra exercise makes you breathe harder and let out more carbon dioxide. That's exactly what we're doing for the soil organisms by giving them extra nutrients! We can find out which nutrients they need most by adding them to soil separately and measuring which nutrient makes them breathe the most. Today we measured carbon dioxide from each of the plots with different nutrients. Later in the field season, we will also look at the soil and what's living in it. We have to wait until the group for Colorado State University arrives before we can do that, since they work with us on the project.

There are two new arrivals to report! Natalie (left) was born December 21 in the Netherlands, and Eden (right) was born December 22 in Georgia. My friends are certainly keeping the obstetricians busy!

Christmas on Antarctica

Well, it's Christmas on Antarctica! Santa Clause did not forget us, even though we're so far from home! He brought me a little stuffed cat that meows, so that I won't miss my cat back at home. Reindeer aren't allowed to come into the Taylor Valley, because they are not native here and their hooves might damage the ecosystem, so Santa had to come by helicopter. This made him very easy to spot! His elves also came with him and brought along cookies!
But, even though it's Christmas, we still had some work to do before we could enjoy the holiday.

In the morning, Mike and I hiked one of the elevation transects. This is similar to what we did several days ago on the other side of the lake. We hiked up about 1,000 feet along the edge of the valley. Once we got up to the top of the transect, we had a quick lunch , then started walking down to take soil samples at regular intervals along the way. We used the GPS to mark where we took samples, so that we know the exact location and how high up we were. We'll measure the chemical properties of the soil at each of the different elevations, from up at 1,000 feet all the way down to the lake. It was very hard, because we were carrying some heavy equipment and parts of it were very steep. Mike says, "The problem with doing the elevation transects is that you work really hard to get to the top, and your only reward is a beef stick and the opportunity to turn around and come right back down." That is very true! We ended up hiking about 10 miles total for the whole transect, so we were very tired!

While at the top of the transect, I had a really good view of the Fryxell Lake basin of Taylor Valley. Here is a panoramic video of the scenery I shot while we were eating lunch:


After working on the transect, we were ready to walk around the lake for Christmas dinner with the rest of our group and the NASA scientists. Since it was a special occasion, we tidied up as best we could. Since we can't use a lot of water, we had to find creative ways to clean up! Mike demonstrates how to take a proper Antarctic shower for Christmas dinner:


When Mike and I moved across the lake to this camp, we were able to take a helicopter. This time we had to walk! We were already very tired, and had to walk another hour and a half for dinner! But, it was worth it! Doug had made a great dinner for the group. We had turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, asparagus, and biscuits. Plus, Elizabeth made gingerbread and an apple & pear pie for dessert! We ate a lot of food and had a good time together. Here's a picture of all of us around the dinner table.

Luckily, when it was time to walk back, someone drove Mike and I back to our home in the camp across the lake. I'm very glad we didn't have to walk another hour and a half! We rode on the back of an ATV across the frozen lake, which only took 15 minutes. Here's the view we had off of the back of the ATV on the lake ice:

Overall, we had a good Christmas here in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica! We worked hard and did a lot of hiking. I think this is the only Christmas in my whole life for which I've had a net loss of calories, rather than a gain! And now, it's finally time for some hard-earned rest! Merry Christmas, from the bottom of the planet (and the farthest point on Santa's journey)!

Mike and I flew across the lake yesterday. From the helicopter, we got a great view of one of the glaciers that comes into the valley! Glaciers are huge expanses of ice made from layers of snow. When more snow falls onto the top, the bottom layers of snow are smooshed into very thick ice. So the result is a big, thick hunk of ice on top of the ground. Glaciers move like very slow rivers and scrape the land below them. Over very long periods of time, they can carve out hills and lakes. Over 10,000 years ago, a lot more of Earth was covered in glaciers, because it was colder. The Great Lakes were formed by glaciers from the last ice age. Glaciers still cover a lot of land in the colder regions of Earth today, such as Antarctica. Chunks of them sometimes fall off into the ocean, making icebergs.

The glacier in the picture is Commonwealth Glacier.

Glaciers grow when it snows and rains on them. They also melt, letting out water for streams and lakes. You can see a small stream coming off towards the left in front of the Commonwealth Glacier. If a glacier melts fast, a lot of water is released. When a glacier is "retreating", that means it is melting faster than it's growing. The glacier is getting smaller, which means more land is uncovered. If you're standing on the ground, it looks like the glacier is backing up. However, that's not actually the case. It's just shrinking! Glaciers shrink very slowly, maybe an inch or so per year. But, glaciers are huge. Two inches off the entire edge of a huge glacier is still a lot of water being released!

Many scientists are concerned that, as the planet warms, glaciers will melt faster. This will release too much water into the oceans, causing ocean levels to rise. There are a lot of cities on the coasts of every country. If the water rises too much, they will be flooded! At a museum in New Zealand, I learned that the predicted change in ocean level would flood Christchurch. Only the steeple of the cathedral in their city would be above water! Melting glaciers is just one of the many reasons that people are trying to stop global warming.
On another note, check out the new arrival! My "nephew" Henry was born in Georgia while I was in New Zealand. He is almost two weeks old now. I can't wait to meet him!

Life at the Field Camp

This is our second full day in the field. The weather is much nicer. It is just above freezing outside, and very sunny! Yesterday, it was colder, cloudy, and windy, but today will be great for field work.
There are several permanent camps around the Taylor Valley. The camps have several small cabins that are the labs for research. The bigger, round building is for cooking, eating, working, and relaxing. The buildings are solar powered and have satellite internet. So, even though we're so far away from civilization, we have electricity, phone, and email! However, there's no plumbing here, so we have no running water. We take water from the lake to cook, drink, and clean. The lake and stream water here comes from the glaciers, so is very clean and safe to drink. We bring the water to the building in buckets, filter it, and leave it in large pots until we use it.

Because this area is a desert, we have to be very careful to not use too much water, and we can't put any water back into the soil. We have to be very careful not to affect the ecosystem more than necessary. We want the Dry Valleys to be the same as when we got here and not leave any trace of human impact. We don't want to take too much water from the lake. Also, all of the water we use has to be stored and taken away with us. Since we're in a desert, the soils and living things don't get much water. If we dump all of our used water into the soil, we are giving them too much water and changing the system. We try to use very little water when cleaning and cooking, and we store all that is used. This used water is called "gray water". We even have to store the water we use to brush our teeth! We can't even take showers, because they use a lot of water. So, I haven't taken a bath for 3 days!

We also have to store all of our trash to take away with us. Our trash is taken away from Antarctica and either recycled, burned, or put into a landfill. We have to sort our trash so that this can be done properly. There are five trash cans here, each for a different type of trash. We also have to store all of the waste our bodies make. There are no bathrooms or toilets here. Everything our bodies produce (all those yucky things we don't think much about) is stored in buckets or barrels and taken away from here!

Overall, we try to be very careful not too change the Dry Valleys, which means we have to be very careful about everything we do. We eat, work, walk and sleep very carefully so that there's very little evidence that we were ever here! This way, future scientists (maybe you!) will be able to see Antarctica the same way that we're seeing right now.

Later today, our group of four researchers will split in half. Ross and Elizabeth will stay here at this camp. Mike and I will fly across the lake to a different camp. We have different projects on the other side of the lake to work on, so need to split up. This way we can get more work done during the week we'll be away from McMurdo! Mike and I will take a helicopter across the lake. That means we'll get to wear the cool helicopter helmets again!

It snowed here Thursday night! It was only a dusting, but that's a lot of snow for this area. The bad weather did not keep us from getting to the field, though (it only delayed us a few hours while the helicopters waited until they could see). So, Friday morning we flew in a helicopter across frozen water to Taylor Valley. Here is a picture of us, in all of our gear, ready to go! There's Mike, Becky, Elizabeth, and Ross, with the helicopter in the background.

We landed at Lake Fryxell, and set ourselves up at the camp. There are small buildings here for eating and working in, but we sleep in tents outside. We are staying at this camp with four people from NASA. They are working on the Phoenix Project, which is a machine that was sent to Mars to look at Martian soil. They are comparing the dry, cold soil here on Antarctica to the dry, cold soils on Mars. This is one of the NASA scientists, Doug, acting silly after a day of hard work!After settling in, we started our field work. We hiked up one of the slopes in the Valley, taking soil samples every 10 meters. This way, we can compare different types of soil with elevation. Long ago, the water in the lake was higher, and there were glaciers covering the whole area. This means that the soil changes as you go higher up a slope. Different soil types will then also change what can live in the soil. We're also interested in what lives in the soil, we also spent some time looking for mosses and measuring how much the animals living in the soil breathe.
We have a neat machine that can measure that for us, by measuring carbon dioxide (the gas that's released when you breathe) in a small area of the soil.

The computer is almost out of battery, so I'll need to write more later!

So far, we've been at our "home base" of McMurdo Station, which is on Ross Island. So, right now, we're technically not sitting on the continent of Antarctica. We're on an island very close to Antarctica in the ice shelf (which would be water, if it weren't covered with a glacier). Tomorrow we'll take a helicopter from McMurdo to the mainland of Antarctica to begin our field work. The particular area where we work is called the Dry Valleys. These valleys are in the Trans-Antarctic Mountains. This big chain of mountains runs from one end of Antarctica to the other. It is made up of smaller ranges, such as the Asgard Mountains and Royal Society Mountains. This is similar to how the Appalachian Mountains run from Georgia into Canada, but are made up of smaller ranges like the Green Mountains and White Mountains, or the Tetons in the Rocky Mountains. The smaller ranges of the Trans-Antarctic Mountains run next to each other, with valleys in between them. These valleys are the Dry Valleys. Here's what that looks like in a close-up map (upside-down from the one above):
And here's what that looks like from a satellite (rotated 90 degrees from map above):
This picture shows where each of those ranges meets the sea. You see the mountains running alongside each other, with flat parts in between them. Those flat points are the valleys, some of which are covered with glaciers. The Dry Valleys are the valleys without glaciers, and they form the largest ice-free area on Antarctica. They receive very little snowfall, and never any rain. Instead of being covered with ice and snow, they are covered with loose rocks and soil. It's the soil that we're interested in! We do most of our work in Taylor Valley, which has 3 lakes (that are frozen, of course). Tomorrow, we'll be going to one of those lakes, called Lake Fryxell. Soon, I'll be able to show you actual photographs of our research group at Lake Fryxell in Taylor Valley!

The Dry Valleys are deserts, just like we have in the U.S. Most deserts are very hot, but the deserts on Antarctica are very cold! This is called a polar desert. So far the weather has been fairly nice, without being too cold. But, the weather is predicted to change before tomorrow, and will become cloudy with a chance of snow!

Snow School

Yesterday I went to Snow School. This is a camping trip where we learn survival skills to help us when we're out in the field. Antarctica is very windy and it's hard to predict when a storm might come, so we always have to be prepared to be caught in bad weather.

Our group was driven out to the McMurdo Ice Shelf. This is an incredibly thick piece of floating ice, several hundred meters thick, that forms where the glacier breaks off from land and flows into the sea. An ice shelf is different from sea ice, because sea ice is made of frozen seawater and melts when the temperature warms, but ice sheets are permanent because they are made of glaciers (so not salty). In the picture below, the mountains are on land. The jagged edges of the mountains show where the glacier breaks, and the flat ice is the McMurdo Ice Shelf, where we were camping.
On Antarctica, roads are marked by flags. Green and red flags show where it is safe to travel, and black flags show where there is danger (but only the danger that has been mapped! There are many dangerous areas that are not flagged). The flags in the picture above show a road on the McMurdo Ice Sheet leading to the airport. No pavement, yellow lines, or street signs here!

We were driven out on these roads by huge trucks called Delta's. The Delta's big tires can safely cross the traverse from land to ice and prevents it from falling into cracks.

At our camping site, we built our own structures to sleep in. First, we put up a special type of tent called Scott Tents, which are tall and pyramid-shaped. These are especially designed to withstand high winds (up to 80 mph). This is necessary, since Antarctica is the windiest of all the continents. We didn't want our whole camp to be blown away and be left homeless all night! So, we built a wall of snow connecting the Scott Tents. We did this by cutting squares of snow from the top of the ice shelf and stacking them into a wall (just like you do with Legos!). The Scott Tents, connected by the snow wall, will help protect the rest of the camp from the wind.

Inside the wall, we also put up regular dome tents, like what you and your family may use when you go camping. However, it's hard to anchor tents to the ground in soft snow, so we had to dig trenches into the ground to bury our tent stakes (these buried anchors are called "dead men").
We also learned to build structures out of snow, in case we get stuck out in the weather with no camping gear. We built a snow cave by piling up all of our duffle bags, then covering them in snow. The snow gets packed down with shovels, then left to sit in the sun and refreeze. After a while, you dig a tunnel to pull out all of the bags, and an open cave remains. It's sort of like an igloo, but messier.We also dug snow trenches that you can sleep inside of. They are small (just the size of one person) and not very warm, but protected from the wind.

Overall, the first day of snow school involved a whole lot of shoveling and sawing! We camped out that evening in the structures we built, and were able to stay very warm even though the temperature outside was only about 20 degrees Fahrenheit. We spent the next day (today) learning other useful survival skills, like how to set up portable VHF radios. We were able to call and talk to people at the South Pole with those radios! We also pretended to be caught in a white-out (when it's snowing so hard you can't see or hear) by placing buckets over our heads. With our heads covered, we had to try to locate one of our team members who was pretending to be lost in the snow.

Tomorrow is our last day to prepare ourselves for our field work. Friday morning we'll leave for Taylor Valley, where we will spend the next week collecting samples for our research!