Meyer-Kaiser lab

"For scientific discovery, give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundsen; but when you are in a hopeless situation, when you are seeing no way out, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton." - Raymond Priestley The Terra Nova hut, at Cape Evans Friends, when I quoted the above sentence to you before , I did not give you the whole thing. There is a third famous Antarctic explorer: Ernest Shackleton. Irish by birth, he served in the British Navy and lead several Antarctic expeditions. Like Scott, he saw hard times on the southern continent, but unlike Scott, Shackleton was renouned as an effective leader and strategic thinker. His famous Endurance expedition to cross Antarctica was plagued by a series of unfortunate events, but his entire expedition team survived (unlike Scott). In fact, when Shackleton's resupply team was stranded in McMurdo Sound, he returned personally to save them, despite having just finished a horrendous journey hims...

I heard the reaction before I heard the blast. The sea ice edge (and a helicopter blade) "Whoa!" exclaimed Chelsea, leaning back in her thick blue coat and raising her camera to her eye. Then I heard the rush of air as the whale breathed behind me and turned around to catch its dorsal fin disappearing below the sea surface. The large gray minke whale was about 10 m away from me. I was standing on a shelf of sea ice. Below me was the Ross Sea, stretching 600 m to the seafloor beneath my feet. Behind me, the white, snow-covered ice shelf ended abruptly and gave way to the deep blue of the ocean. We were at the ice edge collecting samples. Mt. Erebus and the sea ice edge The sea ice edge is a very interesting place biologically. The ice acts like a blanket on the ocean, dampening waves and maintaining a stable water column. Phytoplankton bask in the sunlight in the stable water and grow like mad, providing a key energy source for krill and pteropods . The abundant ...

Days off aren't common in the field, but we got one this weekend. I used it to hike a loop trail near McMurdo Station. The trail goes past a steep formation called Castle Rock, then swings out with overlooks to the Ross Ice Shelf. I'll let my photos speak for themselves - it was a beautiful hike! The Castle Rock Loop trail is marked by flags on the snow There are emergency shelters called "apples" along the trail. Castle Rock With my fellow trainee, Tess, on the trail. We were in a large group, but most people turned back to the station after seeing Castle Rock. We were the only two who did the whole loop.  View out to the Ross Ice Shelf Mt. Erebus was shrouded in clouds and only partly visible from the trail A gorgeous ice formation on the Ross Ice Shelf

Friends, science is a process. It is a journey with plenty of twists and turns, and sometimes, if you're lucky, science has squiggles. I've told you that the trainees in my program have split into small groups to pursue research projects at McMurdo Station. My group played around with scallop byssal threads and then settled on pteropods for our study organism. In the spirit of integrative biology, we have studied multiple aspects of the pteropods. We have observed them swimming and measured their metabolic rates. We have examined their responses to different temperatures. We have investigated the bacterial communities that live in their bodies. Fluorescent squiggles on our microscope slide You may not know this, but most animals host large and diverse communities of bacteria. These microbes aid in digestion, provide chemical cues, and live in harmony with their hosts. In fact, animals can be considered microbial ecosystems . Our group used a fluorescent stain named ...

I dipped the edge of the petri dish into the beaker of water, then pulled it back to find I had successfully caught two amphipods. They were small, red, and bug-like, zooming around the cold water in the dish. I had a hard time focusing on them because they were moving so fast, but thankfully, the speedy swimmers slowed down once they were under the lens of the dissecting microscope. I pulled my chair up to the scope and gazed down through the eyepieces. I had to find out what the little bugs were. I always take for granted that other scientists know invertebrates, just because I spend so much time around those who do. The group of trainees in my Antarctic program encompasses a diverse array of specialties, from physiology to microbiology to planetary science, so obviously not everyone is as excited about invertebrate zoology as I am. I have been able to help others identify the organisms from McMurdo Sound, and if you don't mind, I'd like to introduce you to a few of them....

In mid-summer every year, a supply ship comes to McMurdo Station. Even at the warmest part of the year, the sea ice is too heavy for the ship to get through by itself, so it has to be preceded by an icebreaker. This icebreaker, a Coast Guard vessel called Polar Star , cut a channel through the sea ice in McMurdo Sound so the supply ship could get through. The supply ship, Ocean Giant , coming into port at McMurdo The research ship Nathaniel B. Palmer also stopped in at McMurdo Station while the ice channel was open Antarctica is international territory, and under the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, all commercial activity and military exercises are prohibited. This cartoon makes light of the potential for commercialization after the treaty expires. Seen in the Crary lab at McMurdo Station

Snow-dusted Antarctic terrain "It looks like the moon...or something." Harriet sat next to me on the bench in the van, and I could hear her smooth, deep voice over my shoulder. We were squished in a row of four on a seat probably meant for three, and we were gazing past one another out the windows. The extraterrestrial terrain was dusted with snow as our van rattled up the hill. Sensor antennae at Arrival Heights We drove up the slope and stepped out at a place called Arrival Heights, on the ridge standing high above McMurdo Station. The wind whipped around us, swirling snow and obscuring the view as we stepped out of the vans. When I peaked out from my hood, I could see we were surrounded by a field of antennas, and a large white ball stood atop a compact building on the flat top of the hill. The door to the building opened, and we squished inside. The entryway was obviously not meant for so many people. Removing our parkas, we emerged into a larger room with a...

Discovery Hut McMurdo Sound was one of the first areas of Antarctica reached by European explorers, so it is rich in history from the "heroic age." One of the most notorious Antarctic explorers, Robert Scott, camped in McMurdo Sound and set out from here on multiple expeditions, including his infamous, ill-fated quest for the South Pole. While at McMurdo Station, my fellow trainees and I have had the privilege of touring Scott's historic Discovery Hut, located just down the road from the station. The hut is a specially-managed historic structure, and access is allowed by permission only. It was a rare opportunity for us to experience the early history of Antarctic research and the poignant realities of life on the southern continent before well-established infrastructure. That, my friends, is a century-old seal carcass Discovery Hut was never meant to be inhabited. Scott and his men used a design common in the Australian outback - obviously not a fitting choice ...

The common Antarctic pteropod, Limacina antarctica , photographed under a dissecting microscope by Brandon Hassett. The jar was full of cold, clear Antarctic water. Inside, I could see three or four black specks that seemed to be bobbing up and down in the water. The jar had been sitting still for a while, so I didn't expect the water to be moving that much. Leaning closer, I noticed the black specks were surrounded by clear, spiral-shaped shells. Two lobes of tissue emerged from the shell like little wings. All of a sudden, the animals came into focus. My brain found the word for them: pteropods. Pteropods are commonly called "sea butterflies" because of those two wing-like lobes. They're related to snails and sea slugs, but they spend their entire life-cycle up in the water column, not on the seafloor. Pteropods use their lobes, which are modified extensions of the foot, to swim up and down in the water column. The lobes ripple and beat like butterfly wings, c...

"Play is the highest form of research." - Albert Einstein I was the last one in the row walking single-file out of the aquarium. I turned around to scan over the room one more time, then stepped into the hallway as the aquarium door swung shut behind me. Scallops in the channel. The one up on the wall has attached itself with byssal threads. Mark shrugged. "Well, we'll see what happens," he said. Everyone smiled. We were excited to see what our experiment would yield. A key part of the Antarctic training program is not just learning how to collect samples in Antarctica, but how to best make use of the lab facilities at McMurdo. As in all things, we're learning by experience, by setting up small group projects to investigate organisms we're interested in. My group noticed that the scallops in McMurdo Sound, Adamussium colbecki , form byssal threads. It's pretty common for bivalves to attach themselves to a substratum using biogenic threads, ...

The rows in the storage area are named after types of facial hair. The community message board at McMurdo shows just how bored people get. Antarctic pick-up truck This is where you plug in kiwis. Actually, it's a courtesy car engine-warming station for New Zealanders who stop over. The New Zealand base is just 3 km away. This troll guards a pedestrian bridge over some fuel lines in the middle of the station.

Friends, I love polar regions. I love the cold, dry air. I love the wind . I love the constant daylight and the constant darkness and the challenges of working at the end of the earth . And I love the biodiversity. Polar regions are renowned for the breadth of animals they possess. I'm not talking about polar bears and penguins  (you know me better than that). I'm talking about the animals underwater, on the bottom of the sea. Polar benthic invertebrates have extremely high diversity - more than you would ever expect. You see, oceans in both the Arctic and Antarctic have low temperatures and low productivity, characteristics suggesting that very little would grow there. But exactly the opposite is true. The seafloor in both polar regions is covered by an incredibly diverse array of fauna. In fact, the colder areas are the ones with the highest diversity, to the point that a  single trawl could supply an invertebrate zoology class . Animals collected by divers in McM...

There's a large hill right next to McMurdo Station called Observation Hill (though most people just say "Ob Hill"). I had the chance to hike it today during a break from the lab. The climb is actually pretty steep, but the views on top are worth it! Check out my photos below. McMurdo Station, seen from Ob Hill The icebreaker Polar Star arrived in McMurdo Sound yesterday and is working to break a channel in the ice so supply ships can get through and re-stock the station. Mt. Erebus Those green buildings below are Scott Base, New Zealand's Antarctic research station, located just 3 km from McMurdo This cross atop Ob Hill honors Robert Falcon Scott and his team, all of whom perished after being the second team ever to reach the South Pole (the first was lead by Roald Amundsen )

"After a while he thought he could make out the shape of the mountains through the haze. At first he wasn't sure if this was another kind of mirage, but the farther he walked, the clearer they came into view... He kept walking toward [the mountain], although he didn't know why. He knew he'd have to turn around before he got there. But every time he looked at it, it seemed to encourage him." - Louis Sachar in Holes Mt. Erebus Friends, I am opening this post with a photo of Mt. Erebus, the world's southernmost active volcano. Erebus dominated my skyline yesterday, slowly releasing plumes of water vapor from its summit. The mountain breathed along with me, taking deep, clear breaths of the Antarctic air. Its majestic peak was unmistakable against the clear blue sky. Yesterday was an awesome day.  A Pisten Bully It started with a ride in a Pisten Bully, which is a rough-and-tumble vehicle designed for Antarctic travel. By now, I'm getting used to ...