How to Find Antarctic Soil

Most people think of Antarctica as being cold, snowy, and ice-covered. While that is true for some parts of Antarctica (like, the South Pole, for example), that is not true everywhere in Antarctica. Some areas (like the Dry Valleys) are not covered in ice. Antarctica is a continent, which means it's made out of land, not just ice. The areas that are covered in ice still have soil underneath all of that ice. In most places the ice is incredibly thick, and you'd have to drill down for miles to find the soil. But, there's still soil under there! The areas that do not have ice allow you to see the soil directly, without drilling through any ice. That's why our group works in the Dry Valleys. We're interested in soil, and the Dry Valleys allow us to look at that soil without any ice cover.The Dry Valleys don't have ice because they are in a desert that is very dry. There is not enough snow fall each year to cover the ground completely. No glaciers remain to cover the ground.

The soils of Antarctica are not like those that you're used to seeing. Antarctic soils are very rocky and loose. There's no tree or plant roots to hold the soil together, so it is soft and loose to walk on. It's like walking on the beach, where the sand smooshes around your foot. Except here, there's a lot of rocks, pebbles, and boulders, not just sand. The rocks come from all sorts of different origins. Some of them are from volcanoes. Some of them are from the bedrock.

Mike and I came back to the field today. We are now at Lake Bonney, which is a different lake basin in Taylor Valley. While we're here, we'll hike some more elevation transects for soil samples, plus measure carbon dioxide respiration from several different plots. Unfortunately, the internet at this camp is not very good, and I am not able to upload many pictures. I will upload more when I can!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, from the bottom of the planet!

Here's the first photo of 2008:


This is the ice-covered Ross Sea and the Royal Society Range mountains across from McMurdo Station.

Today, we've been packing ourselves up to go back out into the Dry Valleys. This time we'll be at Lake Bonney, further inland from the ocean than where we were last week. But, it's been snowing here for the past 3 days, so hopefully the weather is good enough tomorrow for us to travel!

Animals Under Our Feet

All sorts of organisms live in the soil all over the world. When you walk on the ground, you're walking on thousands and thousands of critters that you can't even see, with every step! Most of the organisms in soils are bacteria and fungi. The fungi living in the soil aren't mushrooms, like you're used to seeing. They're microscopic fungi. Bacteria and fungi live in soils all over the world in every biome, and Antarctica is no exception! There are also things living in the soil that eat the bacteria and fungi. In many places, like deciduous forests in the U.S., there are tons of different types of organisms living in the soil that eat microscopic bacteria and fungi. On Antarctica, there aren't so many different types, because it's a much harder environment to live in. However, there are some here, but they're all microscopic! There's organisms like protozoa, tardigrades, collembola, and nematodes.

Nematodes are round worms. They are microscopic, and live in all types of habitats. Here, there are only 3 main species that we can find on Antarctica. They can dry themselves out so that they can survive during the cold, dry, dark times on Antarctica, and come back to life when conditions are better (except they were never actually dead, just preserving themselves). The 3 species here eat different things. One eats microbes. Another eats other animals (microscopic animals, of course), making him a predator! That is the top of the Dry Valley food chain: a microscopic nematode!

photo credit: Byron Adams

Tardigrades are a group of animals called "water bears" because they sort of look like 6-legged bears that live in the small amounts of water in soils. Aren't they cute? Water Bears eat microbes, algae, and are also sometimes predators.

Photo credit: Uffe Nielsen

Collembola are also called  "springtails" because they have tail-like appendages that are used for jumping. They mostly eat fungi, but not much is known about what they do in Antarctic soil.

So, as you can see, there are a variety of different types of animals living in the soil here. There's more than just penguins and seals that everyone knows about when they think of Antarctica! And these microscopic soil animals are very important, because they help process those nutrients that we've been studying! We focus mainly on nematodes, because they are the coolest animals down here!

Today, we spent some time preparing samples of soil to look at the nematodes that live in them. We have to be very careful not to hurt the nematodes, so that we can look at them under a microscope while they're still alive. Breana and Ed weigh out the samples of soil and label them:
Then, they give the soil to Diana, who puts them in a sieve and runs water over them. This rinses away most of the soil, so that you have only nematodes floating in water.
Then, Byron gets the sample. He tries to separate the nematodes from the water so that it is easier to see the nematodes under a microscope. Byron, however, lost his luggage when flying down to Antarctica. So, he's wearing clothes from the lost-and-found that we decorated to look like a bee. Here, it's not called lost-and-found, though. It's called the Skua Bin, because skuas are scavenger sea birds. The nematodes will sit in the refrigerator until later, when we look at them under the microscope to identify and count them. Hopefully I'll get some pictures of the nematodes to show you!

We've been working hard in the lab. We're processing our samples that we collected in the field from the elevation transects. The samples have to be sieved to remove the rocks, so that we have just the soil left over. On the soil, we measure pH, conductivity (the amount of ions in the soil that move a current), and the amount of nutrients. These things that we measure help tell us how good of a habitat for organisms the soil is at each of the spots we sampled.

Ross wears his fancy tie-dyed lab coat with his best friend Einstein in his pocket:
Mike says, "Safety first!"
The other team we work with from Colorado State arrived yesterday! Now, we are joined in the lab by Diana, Breana, Ed, and Byron.

We flew back to McMurdo today. We had finished the work we needed to do during our first week in the field. Now, we're back at "home" here at McMurdo station. Here's a nice view from the helicopter.

Look at what came in the mail while we were in the field! Elizabeth and I received Christmas cards from our friend Bob! He made the cards, and drew the artwork himself. They're totally awesome! Now Elizabeth and I have the prettiest desk space in the lab, because we can decorate it with Christmas lizards.


Now that we're finally back from our first week of field work, it's time to shower, eat non-dehydrated food, and rest!

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)!