Some science in Antarctica

I have had the pleasure to get to know a couple of different researchers during my time her in Antarctica. I am going to try to write a little about the research that they are doing here.

B-207-M (from left to right Anne, Britt, Amanda, Nathan and Erin)

 I will start off with Anne Todgham and her group, named B-207-M. Anne is the PI and her group consists of Amanda Kelley, Erin Flynn, Brittany Bjelde and Nathan Miler.

Anne is an environmental physiologist with an interest in understanding the molecular, biochemical and physiological mechanisms that underlie an animal’s capacity to cope with environmental changes.

During their time here in Antarctica one of the things they are studying is how different fish species survive and how the increased CO2 levels in their environment affects them.

The water temperature here is below freezing (28F or -1.9C) and some of the fish has a protein in them that prevents them from freezing. 

Britt explaining the set up

Tanks where the fish is kept

 Their set up in the lab is very elaborate and they are taking it all down before they leave, just to set it all up next year when they get back. I was fortunate to go along with them to go fishing at Cape Evans. Which is also the location of Scott’s Hut.

We did not catch any fish that they needed, but we all got to pull something up. We also had a seal poke the head up through the fishing hole to take a breath. Unfortunately we were not fast enough with the cameras to get a picture of it.

They also been having some assistance from divers to get the samples they needed. Another thing they have been looking at is how the eggs from different species reacts to different temperatures and CO2 levels.  When we went to Cape Evans they took us to an ice cave they had found in an iceberg that was frozen in to the sea ice. Inside we could see amazing ice crystals. I can not do a written description that would make it justice.

Inside the ice cave

Kathleen DeWahl is a research assistant that is going to be staying behind when the rest of us leave next month. As the research assistant, her responsibility is to do daily and monthly checks on the monitoring equipment. The equipment she is checking involves a riometer array, photometers and a magnetometer. The riometer and photometer systems help study the process of energy transfer from the solar winds to the Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere at high magnetic latitudes. The riometer array picks up galactic radio noise, which is assumed to be constant at any point in the celestial sphere. Lastly, the magnetometer is used to study hydromagnetic wave phenomena in the magnetosphere. So, all of this is a long way of saying that this project studies aurora. By the way, the scientific stuff is copied from Kathleen’s blog. She has promised to post a lot of cool pictures of the Auroras this coming winter. Her blog address is http://antarcticdispatches.blogspot.com/

She is also responsible to check the cables from the antennas for wear and tear and I went with her to do that. The view from up on Arrival heights where her monitoring equipment and little office is located is great.

Riometer array

Highest wind speed recorded at Arrival Heights

OB Hill and White Island 

Checking the cables for any cracks

Royal Society Mountain Range

Kathleen explaining some of her work

Royal Society Mountain Range

There are of course of lot of other research going on and you can find more info about it on USAP’s (United States Antarctic Program) website. (www.USAP.gov).