Directory

Start date:
Late October
End date:
Mid February
Locations:
F6, Lakes Hoare, Bonney, and Fryxell
Principle Investigator:
Dr W. Berry Lyons
Organisation:
Ohio State University
Field season overview:
During the upcoming McMurdo LTER field season, researchers plan to travel to various sites within the Dry Valleys to collect water, snow, and sediment samples. The sampling can be achieved on foot or by taking day trips by helicopter from McMurdo Station or Lake Hoare to the sampling sites. The research team will also be moving to Lake Hoare, Lake Bonney, F6 and Lake Fryxell to work with the limnological and stream teams. They will travel to upland pond sites within the Dry Valleys to collect additional water samples as necessary.
Theme or program:
Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Program
The McMurdo Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) projects will continue to investigate the McMurdo Dry Valleys as an end-member ecosystem and focus on the relative roles of legacy and extant processes on current biodiversity and ecosystem structure and function. Specifically, B-509-M is responsible for monitoring the inorganic geochemistry of waters and solid samples collected from the glaciers, streams, ponds, lakes, and landscape of the Dry Valleys. The field team will continue to study the upland seeps and ponds to gain a better understanding of their hydrologic and geochemical controls. The researchers will also continue to collaborate with co-principal investigators involved with the LTER soil, lake, stream, and glacier sampling programs in the Dry Valleys to provide geochemical data in support of their research.