Directory

Start date:
Late October
End date:
Mid February
Locations:
Dry Valleys, Taylor Valley, Lake Hoare, Lake Bonney, F6, Lake Fryxell
Principle Investigator:
Dr William Berry Lyons
Organisation:
Ohio State University
State
Ohio
Initially funded in 1980, the U.S. Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) network is a collaborative effort involving more than 1,800 scientists and students. The McMurdo LTER program is an inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary study of the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems in the ice-free McMurdo Dry Valleys. It is one of 26 LTER sites where researchers are studying ecological processes over long temporal and broad spatial scales. Geochemistry component researchers monitor the inorganic geochemistry of waters and solid samples collected from the glaciers, streams, ponds, lakes, and landscape of the Dry Valleys. They also continue to study the upland seeps and ponds to gain a better understanding of their hydrologic and geochemical controls. This six-year award cycle comprises seven collaborative projects: C-504-M (Gooseff), C-505-M (Priscu), C-506-M (Gooseff), C-507-M (Wall), C-508-M (Barrett), C-509-M (Lyons), and C-511-M (Doran).
Field team members will collect water, snow, and sediment samples. They will travel to their sampling sites by foot or by helicopter from McMurdo Station or Lake Hoare. They will work with the limnology and stream teams at Lakes Hoare, Bonney, F6, and Fryxell. At upland pond sites within the Dry Valleys, team members will collect additional water samples. They will return to Crary Lab to perform chemical analysis of lake, stream, glacier, and other samples.