The days are getting shorter in London and the Museum's Ice Rink has opened, but this also means that the days are getting longer in Antarctica with the austral summer approaching. This year, I am very lucky to be invited to join an Antarctic expedition to carry out field work at Lake Joyce, a perennially ice-covered lake in McMurdo Dry Valleys.
While I am still packing the cargo and organsing how many woollen and thermal socks I need, half of the team is already there. This year our field work is part of the US Antarctic Program and our main station is McMurdo Station on Ross Island. Here's a webcam with a view over McMurdo.
We will continue our work on microbial diversity and the ecology of benthic cyanobacteria-based microbialite structures to better understand why and how microbialite structures are forming in Antarctic lakes.
US Antarctic Program bag tags and travel documents.
Perennially ice-covered Lake Joyce and Taylore Glacier in the Pearse Valley, McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica.
