Wrapping up the Field Season

We've been spending a lot of time on the microscopes looking at our samples. We are interested in the invertebrates living in the soil. At Rothera, we've only been able to look at the larger invertebrates, such as Springtails and mites. The smaller invertebrates (the nematodes and rotifers) require higher power microscopes, so we will look at those from our labs at home.

Here's some of what we've seen:

Collembola, also known as Springtails

We've found a LOT of springtails. Many of the samples from the islands near Rothera have thousands of springtails in them! Here's what we saw in the field:

Springtails "rafting" in a puddle of water

There are also a lot of mites in the samples, but they are not nearly as numerous as the springtails.

Oribatid mites

Other than microscope work, for the past few days, Uffe and I have been packing up to leave. We are scheduled to leave Rothera in two days! We have carefully packed up our samples and science gear to be shipped home. The lab has been cleared out and cleaned up, and we've put away all of our field gear. The end of our season is near! On Thursday, we will hopefully be boarding the Dash 7 to return to Punta Arenas and begin our journey home.