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After a day of busy packing, submitting a request for a helicopter and some sequence data analysis, I went for an evening walk. It was a cloudy day and a little chilly as well. Over summer around 1,000 people are at McMurdo station and therefore you can find a little bit of everything that you would also find in any small town or village around the world.
Scott's Discovery Hut and McMurdo Station.
Cary labs, where a lot of the science is happening.
McMurdo shop.
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.
McMurdo Station is the biggest station of the US Antarctic Program with more than 1000 people in summer. It is like a small city with a café and a pub or even two pubs and many clubs that form over the summer.
I spend much of time the in Crary Lab, which is the main research facility at the station. The research carried out in the Crary lab ranges from biological to earth and atmospheric sciences. The Crary Lab has also a library with great views over the McMurdo Ice Shelf.
View form the library to the Ice Runway with the Royal Society mountain range in the background.
You can also see the helicopter pad from the library. Most scientist go to their field sites by helicopter.
Our lab
Library
Well, actually we never left Christchurch yesterday! Just before the departure, our flight was cancelled because of strong winds in Antarctica. BUT today we made it!!!
The aircraft landed on the McMurdo Ice Shelf and from there we get brought to McMurdo Station on Ivan the Terra Bus.
McMurdo Station
I'm Anne Jungblut from the Botany Department. Join me as I head to Antarctica to study cyanobacterial diversity in ice-covered lakes of the Dry Valleys and Ross Island where already scientists on Scott's and Shakleton's expeditions made many discoveries.
Michelle
on
Getting ready for our next adventure in Antarctica: Lake Joyce
RichardF
on
Cyanobacterial mats in the Labyrinth, Wright Valley, Antarctica
Gary Oberts
on
Antarctica 2012 - Back to the McMurdo Dry Valleys
Anne D. Jungblut
on
Antarctica 2012 - Back to the McMurdo Dry Valleys
Gary Oberts
on
Antarctica 2012 - Back to the McMurdo Dry Valleys
