Questions from members of a Second Grade Classroom in Troy, Michigan!

I've got lots of great questions from members of a Second Grade Classroom in Troy, Michigan!

Anhad..."On silde 20 of 64, Is there a sticker on a rock?"

I think what you're looking at is a lens flare, which is an effect that sometimes occurs in photos when the light hits your camera lens a certain way. In this case, I think it was because it was so sunny that day.

Ronald..."How much snow do you get in Antarctica?"

The McMurdo Dry Valleys, where I do most of my research, get a very small amount of snow. Here is a picture of snow packs in Taylor Valley, which are present during the Austral summer.

Snow patches in the Taylor Valley, Antarctica

The Dry Valleys do get snowstorms. However, it's so dry that the snow will sublimate (evaporate) very quickly. We had a storm while I was at a field camp, but the snow had evaporated by the following day.

Summertime snow on my tent at F6 camp in Taylor Valley

Snow collected during a summertime storm at McMurdo Station, Antarctica

Addsion..."How cold does it get in Antarctica?"

The average temperature in the Dry Valleys is around -13 C, where C stands for centigrade, and 0 C is the temperature at which water freezes. During the summer, the air temperatures can get as warm as 10 C, and during the winter, the air temperatures can as cold -60 C.

Alyssa..."Why does the plane have skis and not wheels?"

Most of Antarctica is covered in snow and ice, so planes with skis are much more useful because they can land on snow and ice. At McMurdo, planes land on the Ross Ice Shelf, which is a glacier on top of the sea. The planes with skis can also land on top of the Antarctic Ice Sheet at the South Pole, and on snow and ice fields near other deep field camps and other research stations. The wheeled aircraft, on the other hand, can only land on specially prepared ice-runways. As far as I know, the only such runway exists at McMurdo station, and it is only used when the weather is cold enough to keep the ice frozen solid -- which is not the case during the summer months.

Madden..."How did the ice glaciers form?"

Great question! I think that is one of the major questions glaciologists are studying. My basic understanding is that as snow accumulates, over many thousands of years, it is compressed into ice. Some of the ice on the Antarctic Ice Sheet is hundreds of thousands of years old! You can think of the glaciers as really slow moving, frozen rivers. The ice is constantly moving downhill, although too slow for us to see in real time.

Ariela..."How long was your trip from your home to Antarctica?"

My trip home takes about 3 days. It's about an 8.5 hour flight from Antarctica to New Zealand, and then about 30 hours of travel and layovers at airports to get from New Zealand back home.

Dean..."Why are the rocks different colors?"

The different colors arise from the different processes that created the rocks. There are lots of rocks that are of volcanic origin in the Dry Valleys, and those create lots of the dark streaks in the landscape. Rocks with a lot of iron tend to be reddish, like rust.

Dominick..."How many avalanches have been in Antarctica?"

I have no idea, but probably a lot. I've seen one, when a glacier behind one of our field camps calved.

Audrey..."What does F6 mean?"

The streams that flow into Lake Fryxell in Taylor Valley are numbered, so that researchers can keep them straight in the notes. The stream nearest Canada Glacier is number one (stream F1, or Fryxell stream #1). The sixth stream is F6, and the camp located where that stream flows into Lake Fryxell is F6 camp. The streams all have other names as well. For example, stream F1 is also known as Canada Stream, and stream F6 is also known as Von Guerard Stream.

Will..."What are you doing now on January 27, 2015?"

Now I'm back at McMurdo Station. Instead of camping at a field camp and collecting samples, I'm staying in a dorm and working in the lab at McMurdo to analyze the soil samples I collected. Our group of researchers looks for microorganisms in the soils and we also measure soil chemistry.

James..."How tall are the mountains in Antarctica?"

Pretty tall. Mount Erebus, which is the southernmost active volcano, is about 12,500 ft.

Harish..."How many valleys did you see total?

This year I've been to two. I've been to 8 over the past 5 years.

Jaden..."Why is there dirt in the snow?"

Lots of different reasons. Glaciers pick up dirt and rocks as they slowly scrape away at the ground underneath. Also, this is a very windy place, and wind blows dust on top of the snow and ice.

Emily..."What kinds of rocks changed color?"

I don't know of any that change color, but I'm not a geologist.

Julia...On picture 46 of 64, Is that a volcano?"

Good question. That particular mountain is not a volcano. It's just shrouded in clouds and I took a picture because I thought it looked cool. However, Mt. Erebus is a volcano and it is right behind McMurdo Station!

Mt. Erebus, Ross Island, Antarctica with steam rising out of the caldera at the top.

Jeremiah and Prisha..."Why are there so many rocks/stones?"

Liquid water, plants, and animals contribute a lot to the weathering and decomposition of rocks, which creates soil, in more temperate parts of the world. Because the Dry Valleys are very dry, and there are not plants, and biological processes occur very slowly, rocks and gravel dominate the landscape.

Jenna..."How big are the rocks in centimeters?"

From less than 1 to greater than 1,000,000

Ivan..."Is there gold or diamonds in Antarctica?"

I don't know, but I bet folks are looking.

Sameer, Lillian and Xavier..."Why can't someone drive the ATV on soil?"

It took many thousands, if not millions of years for many of the features in the Dry Valleys to form. The ATVs leave tracks in the soil, and we want to minimize our impact on this pristine landscape. The ice around the edge of the lakes melts and reforms every year, so any tracks we leave with the ATV disappear each year.

Nolan..."What are the camp buildings made out of?"

Some are made of wood. Some are rack Tents or similar structures that have wood frames with canvas stretched over them.

Prisha..."Why is the Canada Glacier so big?"

Canada Glacier is actually a fairly small glacier for Antarctica. It is considered an "alpine glacier" which is hanging off one of the mountains into Taylor Valley. The glaciers that run from the interior of the Antarctic continent to the ocean are thousands of times bigger. There is a lot of ice down here!

Vukadin..."What is in the soil that you picked up with the spoon?"

We collect those samples to look for cyanobacterial mats, which are a kind of photosynthetic bacteria that live in colonies. Cyanobacteria, diatoms, and mosses are some of the main primary producers in the Dry Valley ecosystem.

Anhad..."On picture 46 of 64, is that an avalanche?"

That is not an avalanche, though it kind of looks like it. It's clouds that accumulated around a mountain. In the foreground, that is the Canada Glacier.

Madden..."Why is the water by the glacier not frozen?"

Good question. The radiation from the sun causes the glacier to melt, so that water is melt water running off the glacier. The glaciers are so big and so cold that the loss of melt water doesn't really changer their size. However, if the climate warms, this could change. For example, in North America, glaciers in Glacier National Park are melting away.

Emily..."What are the minerals that Kevin is holding?"

 I'm not sure what picture you're talking about, but I think I have pictures of him holding everything from algal mats to basalt (volcanic) rocks.

Sai..."What's the tempearture?"

Right now it's around 0 C

Dominick..."How did some of the snow melt?"

Even if the air temperature does not get above freezing, radiation from sunlight can heat up the snow and cause it to melt. Although, it does get above freezing here in the summer. So that can cause snow to melt too.

Audrey..."Why does Antarctica have so much snow?"

I don't think it snows all that much here. I think it's more an issue of the fact that it's so cold here year round, and the snow never has a chance to melt. The snow and ice that we see covering Antarctica has accumulated over hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years. The exception is the Dry Valleys, which see very little precipitation, mountains stop ice from flowing in off the ice sheet, and the air is so dry that the little bit of snow that does fall each year immediately evaporates.

Alyssa..."What are some of the different animals in the water besides the sea spider?"

The sea spider that I took a picture of was in one of the aquariums in the lab at McMurdo. Those animals are from marine (saltwater/ocean) habitats. We don't find any of those things in the lakes in the Dry Valleys. There are lots of different types of animals in the Ross Sea around McMurdo, from sea stars to isopods and amphipods to eel pouts and other types of fish. And then, of course, there are also Orca and Minke Whales, Weddell seals, and Adele and Emperor penguins.

James..."What other penguins are there in Antarctica besides the Adelli Penguin?"

Around McMurdo, the only other penguins are the Emperor penguins.

Thanks for all the great questions!

Fish under the ice...

Some of our colleagues with the WISSARD project drilled through hundreds of meters of ice on the Ross Ice Shelf and found life! Many of the biologists on this project also do really interesting work to understand the microbial life that lives under the ice in the lakes in the Dry Valleys.

Read about the story here:
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=133895&org=NSF&from=news

Some pictures from the beginning of the 2014-2015 field season...

Trying on the Extreme Cold Weather Gear

We fly from New Zealand to McMurdo Antarctica on a LC130 with skis!

Almost there...

Landed at Pegasus Airfield on the Ross Ice Shelf near Ross Island, Antarctica.

McMurdo Station holds an annual concert called Ice Stock to celebrate New Year's Eve.

Our team planning the field season...

I don't have pictures from field work yet... but here are some soils we collected. We're analyzing soil chemistry here, including pH and nutrient contents.

Jess is washing our glassware for more analyses.

Ashley is counting nematodes in the soil.

Ruth is measuring soil pH and electrical conductivity.

Question from Dan Bryant:

As a current college student, how does one get in contact or find the "path" to conduct research in Antarctica?

Hi Dan,
Great question. I highly recommend getting involved in undergraduate research. At my school there was a program called the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program that listed which professors in the Biology Department were looking students to work in their lab. At some institutions there are professors that are looking for students to work with them as research assistants in Antarctica.

Even if there are not professors who do Antarctic research at your school, I would still recommennd undergraduate research. You won't necessarily start off getting to go to remote field sites, but undergraduate research can help you get your foot in the door. My undergraduate research involved identifying and counting aquatic insects from streams in Venezuela. I didn't get to go to South America, but I learned a great deal about freshwater ecology from working in that lab, and I got to help out with field work around southeastern Michigan. I found that I really loved field ecology, and the professor I worked for recommended me for a job doing field work in Alaska, which was awesome. Eventually, I went to graduate school for ecology and met a Professor who was doing research in ecology got a proposal funded to work as a postdoctoral researcher in Antarctica.

If you don't make it to Antarctica as an undergraduate, there are opportunities to do graduate research here. If you're interested in ecology or environmental sciences, there are a number of professors involved with the Long Term Ecological Research program at McMurdo who conduct research and advise graduate students who do research in the Dry Valleys and beyond. I recommend finding professors who study topics that you find fascinating and contacting them about graduate school.

Welcome to the 2014-2015 field season!

Hi folks,

I'm at the airport and ready to make a rather long and winding journey, via Sydney, to Christchurch, New Zealand, and eventually on to McMurdo Station in Antarctica. I'm looking forward to getting this travel over with and getting the field season started. We're doing some really exciting science this year, which I will write about in more detail later.

I look forward to hearing from you. Please post questions and comments over in the "Questions" tab (CLICK HERE). Then I will post answers on the main page.

Answers for Jacob Madonna

Dear Dr. Sokol
I'm an AP Biology student from Maplewood New Jersey. I'm in the same class as Jonah, Chris, Emma, Sarah, and Tim . I've been following your blog for the past month and i have a couple questions to ask you
1) You've been going to Antarctica for a couple years now. How do you set yourself goals regarding your research?

Hi Jacob,
Great questions! Setting goals for research in Antarctica is generally pretty easy because we have to have a fairly specific research plan outlined to get funded to do research down there in the first place.

It seems that for our research group, we have a wish-list of goals and a realistic-list of goals. Usually the wish-list involves collecting many more samples from many more sites than is practical.

For my first project, our goal was to conduct a fairly extensive survey of soil biodiversity across an 800 km stretch of the Transantarctic Mountians. This involved planning travel by helicopter to a bunch of different field sites. We had a pretty simple, but specific soil sampling field protocol that we followed at all every site, so that made field work pretty simple. The tricky part was getting to all the sites. We prioritized a list of sites that we really really wanted to go to, and a list of sites that we would like to go to if weather allowed and we had enough time. I think we ended up getting a variety of samples that represent the soil bacterial diversity in the Transantarctic Mountains pretty well.

For the past three years, I have been working with the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) group. The main goal of this group is to maintain a long-term record of the ecology of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, and also conduct long-term field experiments so that we can understand ecological responses that occur over fairly long time scales (e.g., decades). The McMurdo LTER has been running for a long time (20+ years), so a lot of the work I do with the LTER is continuing to collect samples to continue the long term record of the geochemistry and biodiversity of soils in the McMurdo Dry Valleys.

2) How does climate change directly affect your research with microscopic organisms? 

This is a question that we are currently trying to answer, but probably won't have an answer for a while. We think that in the coming decades climate change will increase glacial melt, and thus increase the presence of liquid water in the Dry Valleys during the austral summer. We think this will affect the ecology of the Dry Valleys, but we're not exactly sure how. One of the broad hypotheses of the McMurdo LTER project is that there will be increased "connectivity among landscape units." For example, we think increased melt from the glaciers will increase the amount of water that percolates though the soil, mobilizing nutrients and micro-organisms in the soils.

The frequency of melt events and amount of melt water will have consequences for the types of organisms that dominate the stream channels and adjacent soils in the wetted margins. For example, past studies have shown that a shift in water availability in a stream channel can lead to a shift in the species composition of the diatom community. There tend to be more endemic, cold-adapted diatom species in cold, dry stream channels that only see liquid water periodically (not every year). We think these types of streams may be very sensitive to the anticipated increase in glacial melt.

3) Have you ever had to change the way you approached an experiment or research topic because of Antarctica's extreme climate

We try to keep our field work simple to avoid complications due to the extreme climate. Most of the field work I'm involved in just requires collecting ecological samples. We normally store samples by freezing them, so Antarctica is actually quite helpful in that we don't always need to worry about bringing coolers and ice out in the field with us.

The extreme climate does affect our access to field sites or ability to collect samples. That is, sometimes we have to sit and wait for winds to die down or fog to clear before we can get a helicopter ride to or from a field site. Sometimes it is too cold to collect water, or sometimes we can't collect a soil sample at a particular location because it is frozen solid in ice.

This season, extreme weather has prevented us from being able to ship our science samples from McMurdo back to the US. There is a large cargo vessel that visits McMurdo each year at the end of the season. At the end of each season most of our science samples are loaded onto this vessel and they are shipped back to the US. However, an extreme windstorm hit McMurdo as they were loading the vessel this year, and the boat had to leave before all of our science samples were loaded onto it. These types of situations happen when you work in an extreme place. Luckily for us, I think most of the our samples will be fine in a freezer for a year... we'll just have to wait.

Answers for Jonah Williams

Dear Dr. Sokol,
It has been really fascinating to read about the research that you and your team are currently conducting in Antarctica. As a strong activist in the climate change world, I am very glad to see that you have been having success compiling all your work, and that your research will provide valuable information on climate change patterns in the antarctic. I recently finished some research on carbon sequestration in photoplankton and microalgae, and the quantification and change in biomass due to ocean warming patterns.
My question for you relates the the biotechnological procedures you are using to observe these microscopic organism you are studying.
1. What types of procedures are you using to manipulate the DNA in certain organisms you study to make it easier to view. (PCR? Plasmid vectors?)

Hi Jonah,
It sounds like you are doing some interesting work. I'm not a molecular or microbiologist, so in the projects that I have mainly been working on we are not manipulating DNA. Our objective has been to conduct a relatively broad survey of the diversity and types of microbes living in arid soils in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Some of our collaborators at the University of Waikato in New Zealand have worked with MoBio to develop a protocol to extract DNA from soil samples with very low microbial biomass. We then run PCRs on the environmental DNA using general primer sets that target broad groups. For example, we used a primer that targeted a conservative region of 16S rDNA, which targets bacteria generally. If you are interested, you can email me and I can send you some citations, or you can find our recent paper here. The published data set is just fingerprinting based off of tRFLP, so our most recent publication is about diversity patterns over very broad spatial scales. We have sequenced a subset of the fingerprinted samples using pyrosequencing and we are currently analyzing that data set to figure out the types of bacteria that are making up the diversity patterns. There are papers identifying bacterial taxonomic groups in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, but our recent paper is the first to look over a very broad spatial scale (~ 800 kms).  

2. How extensive is you laboratory in terms of equipment? I understand that you are in Antarctica, but do you have all the equipment that you might find back home at Virginia Tech?

Crary Laboratory in McMurdo is pretty extensive, but there is not a lot of equipment for doing molecular work. When we do our work, we collect our samples in the field aseptically and we add a preservative to the soil, like Sucrose Lysis Buffer. Then we freeze the samples and ship them back to New Zealand or the US for molecular work. We have tried to extract DNA from soils in the lab at McMurdo, and it is certainly possible, but it's much easier just to do that back at the University.

That said, Crary does have a lot of basic lab equipment. There are drying ovens, muffle furnaces, fume hoods, laminar flow hoods, centrifuges, etc., so there is plenty of equipment for us to do basic soil geochemical analyses. Some research groups have pretty sophisticated setups that they require on site for their work, but our setup is pretty simple.

3. What types of methods are you employing in population measurement of micro-organism species? How do you quantify the movement of certain populations in response to climate change? 

That's an interesting question. I have been focusing more on community level measures of diversity than assessing specific population level dynamics. Most of the work we have done thus far has focused on the link between microbial biodiversity and environmental variation. In that work, we use patterns of community similarity to infer how well microbial communities are connected among Dry Valleys.

Overall, we haven't done a very good job of actually directly quantifying the movement of micro-organisms, but that is something that we have been trying to get funding to do. One of our collaborators in New Zealand did a really interesting study where they set up a pump that pumped a large volume of air through a filter, and they then sequenced the bacterial DNA that was on the filter. They sampled air at a high elevation and at a low elevation to characterize the microbial communities that are entrained in the air at different elevations, and found differences, but we need more samples to be able to sufficiently answer questions about how well different groups of micro-organisms are dispersing throughout the Dry Valleys.

Another group of collaborators associated with the McMurdo LTER focuses on nematodes, and they set up sediment traps in the Dry Valleys. They found some viable nematodes in the sediment traps, so we know that the nematodes can be dispersed by wind, but we are trying to get a better handle on how extensively they are dispersed by wind. Dr. Byron Adams at BYU has done some work looking at population level genetics to infer levels of dispersal among Dry Valleys, but that is still an ongoing area of research.

Thank you for you time! I am looking forward to what you have to say, and keep up the good work!
Stay warm!
- Jonah

Thanks for writing Jonah!