Directory

Start date:
Late December
End date:
Early February
Locations:
Dry Valleys, Canada Glacier
Principle Investigator:
Dr. Donal Manahan
Organisation:
University of Southern California
State
California
This science event is an international, advanced Ph.D. training course that was taught at Palmer Station during the 2016 austral winter (July-August) and will be held at McMurdo Station during the austral 2017-18 austral summer (December -February). Between 1993 and 2010, the program has deployed participants nine times to McMurdo Station in January. The goal of the course is to introduce early-career scientists to the diversity of biological organisms in the Antarctic and to study unique aspects of biology that permit life in such extreme environments. This project will give scientists who are new to the Antarctic the opportunity to learn about and appreciate the logistical possibilities and constraints of working in this extreme environment. Course participants will develop experiments and attend lectures focusing on understanding the ecology and biological adaptations of Antarctic organisms.
The science team will deploy from late December through early February with a majority of participants on ice for the month of January. An advance team will set up labs and field sites, and a few people will stay after the main group for final clean up.They will drill holes into annual sea ice at various field locations (e.g., near the Ross Ice Shelf, the sea water intake jetty, Cape Evans) to conduct water sampling. Helicopters will provide the team some support for trips to Cape Evans, some sea ice locations and to the ice edge, but they will access most sites by snow mobile or other tracked vehicles. They will use Crary Lab facilities for nearly all of the sample analyses.