University Valley

University Valley is located at high elevation in the Dry Valleys (1650-1800 m.a.s.l) in the Quartermain Range. It has a small glacier at the head of the valley, and when we got there, it was covered in snow!   This was really surprising, but gave us a chance to see in situ just how quickly snow in this valley sublimes and gets blown away by strong katabatic winds.

Stitch of University Valley and both side walls- note that part of the valley is shadowed- this effects the cryptoendolithic communities living on that valley wall which receive less sunlight. 

University Valley is located in the ‘stable upland zone’ of the Dry Valley is a region of the Dry valleys where there is the presence of both dry permafrost, and ice-cemented permafrost. This is a rare condition on Earth, but is also known to occur on Mars, hence the interest in testing the IceBreaker Drill here. Quick definitions: Permafrost is ground that does not rise above 0C for two consecutive years, and DRY permafrost is permafrost with less than 3% water (negligible). Dry permafrost looks just like sand at the beach: 

While the habitability of the permafrost is being investigated in University Valley, one observable niche are the Beacon Supergroup sandstone that forms the valley walls. Just looking at them you wouldn’t suspect the rich biomass that lies within: 

Cryptoendolith hunting along the sandstone valley walls in university Valley

cracked open rock revealing the life hidden within

more endolith glamour shots

The field campaign was very successful- several permafrost cores and pits were sampled, cryptoendoliths galore,  and the IceBreaker drill performed well under the Mars like conditions of University Valley. Now, the lab fun begins. 

The IceBreaker drill testing in University Valley.

Pearse Valley- 2 Women drill team at it again!

Jan 21st/22^nd

A quick preamble- On our way to Pearse we flew over Blood Falls, I could only snap a few  quick photos, but this site deserves mention . It is one of the more well-known sites in the Dry Valleys, and one of the coolest. Blood Falls discharges from Taylor Glacier as a cold (~7 X) ancient marine brine, rich in sulfates and oxidized iron, castiung the reddish hue that gives the falls its name. 

Microbiology wise- the sulfur rich waters are dominated by autotrophic sulphur oxidizing thiomicrospira identified through molecular surveys of the water, biomass levels were 10⁵ cells/mL. 

Pearse was spectacular, and can’t adequately be described in words, but if it could, majestic, awesome (in the very literal sense) would be some words to pull out. Mars and I had the place to ourselves and we made good use and time of it. We set up camp in a beautiful section of the valley right next to a permanently ice covered lake, and close to a glacier, a quick lunch and it was off to work .

 This permanently ice covered  lake (Lake Joyce) is a really fascinating spot for me as a microbiologist- folks like Dale Anderson dive into the frigid waters here (‘coolest’ job?) and provide a glimpse of just how versatile and extreme life can be. What little light gets through the ice cover of this lake provides the energy for cyanobacterial life (primary producers) within the lake.  These organisms form calcifying microbial mat structures that look like an alien world. 

We weren’t there to sample the lake though, we were interested in the soils found in this dry valley. In this particular valley wet streaks can be observed on some of the valley slopes. Could soils in these wet-streaks harbour active microbial life? We took some  surface and ice-cemented permafrost samples from both the dry and ‘wet’ streaks, as well as measured soil flux in situ with the LosGatos Ultraportable Greenhouse gas analyzer that we had brought to the field to measure CO₂ and CH₄ flux from soils. 

One day and night of work in Pearse, and it was onward to University Valley. 

Soil collars for respiration measurements set up in the dry (left) and wet (right) soils in Pearse valley. 

The cold and aridity of the Dry Valleys are the predominant reasons that this region is considered one of the most Mars like places on Earth. 

heading into the cold.

So far we have a green light weather wise to take off for the field today. I will be spending a night with Margarita at Pearse Valley, it will be a two person camp, and I am looking forward to the physical and mental test of it! We were supposed to leave 2 days ago, but got dumped with 40 cm of snow here in McMurdo ( great oppourtunity to get some garbage bag/cardboard box sledding in!). What this means though is that Pearse may have a layer of snow on its valley floor which may make sampling and making measurements a bit difficult. No point in speculating though, instead its time to get to the field!

From Pearse we will be heading straight to University Valley, where we will join 3 members of our team (Wayne Pollard, Alfonso Davila, and Denis Lacelle). We should be there about 2 weeks if all goes well.



Hopefully you won't hear from me for the next two and a half weeks!

Heres a photo of some seals taken from the helicopter to tide you over. 

Lake Frxyell day trip recap

Phew, finally made it out to the field two days ago.

This was a day trip to Lake Frxyell one of the "warmer" and "wetter" Dry valleys that I will be looking at to compare with the colder and drier, higher elevation Dry Valleys.

View of Lake Frxyell flying in on helicopter (for scale, those small yellow things are Scott tents)

It was a two person team, and I got my first taste of coring through ice-cemented permafrost. As an exercise for the kids doing the remote drilling with the Icebreaker drill (and you can try this too!), Margarita likes to tell them to try pouring some water in a tupperware container full of soil and freezing it, and then to try scooping out the soil. You can't, this ground is called ice-cemented ground, because it is about as hard as cement. Coring through cement is no easy task, but we got the samples we needed to do the science (after about three attempts, since we kept encountering large frozen rocks with depth in our holes).

Our two woman drill team!

I was also able to take soil gas measurements, to measure any microbial respiration that could be taking place in the soil, even at sub-zero temperatures. I was measuring the rate of methane and carbon dioxide flux from the soils, to try to determine if the microbial populations are alive and active in these cold and dry conditions, or if they are dormant and just frozen in the soil.

Taking soil respiration measurements in the Dry Valleys 

I was able to collect samples and observe some life in this valley, in the form of endoliths .  I saw cryptoendoliths (crypto= hidden, endo= within, lith= rocks) and hypoliths (life under rocks). I saw little patches of green under translucent rocks when I lifted them up, and some cracked open rocks had a line of green a few millimetres below the surface.  Even though the conditions are very dry, cold and harsh for life, rocks provide a niche that microbial life can thrive in. A little bit of moisture is trapped within and underneath the rocks, providing liquid water for life. Light can penetrate through certain kinds of rock, and so, just underneath the rock surface photosynthetic bacteria like cyanobacteria are able to use the light as an energy source, and carbon dioxide from the air to create biomass. These photoautotrophic primary producers can support heterotrophic bacteria, and so endolithic life isn't just one life form, but a whole community.

Cryptoendolith from University Valley

will make a last update before I hit the field a bit later tonight.

More Astrobiology Research at McMurdo: WISSARD

A group here doing research at McMurdo recently made the news.  They are using sterile hot water drilling techniques to drill into an ice covered lake in the Antarctic. Any life that live in the lake would experience cold, but also a lack of sun (and therefore no photosynthetic activity) as a means of primary productivity. These ice covered lakes can be thought of as analogs to icy moons, such as Jupiters moon Europa. Europa is though to have an ocean of liquid water locked under its icy surface. Enceladus, the cold moon of Saturn, has plumes of water that shoot up through the ice to the surface and falls back down as snow. Read more about how researchers are studying subsurface water in an icy environment here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/15/science/wissard-project-seeks-signs-of-life-under-antarctica.html?ref=science&_r=0

Remote Ops of the IceBreaker Drill

So, one more 6 am wake up to dress in full gear ready for the field....and one more windy, snowy, low visibility, no helicopter flight out day. I was supposed to leave for Lake Fryxell in the Dry Valleys today, and then head out to University Valley tonight, but yet again, mother nature had other plans for me.

It worked out well, because I was able to stick around to see the IceBreaker Drill set up just outside the Crary labs  (an impressive, well run, tight science ship!) here in McMurdo station. The weather did not make setting up the drill very fun, but that's part of the reason they are testing the drill out here and not a safe, warm lab: to test the drill in the types of conditions it would encounter in extreme environments, like those on Mars.

Today the drill was tested with a group of kids in the U.S., who all the way in Arizona were able to send commands to the drill, and have it operate here in the Antarctic. We talked about our research with them on the phone, answered questions, and they remote operated the auger to drill at various speeds here. They were able to visually see the drill in action via webcam. I captured a bit of the scene on camera, but as you can imagine, the wind didn't make for great audio (and I had to upload a low-res version of the video to not choke up the internet that we all share here). Here's a taste of what was happening on our end in the Antarctic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSNuwtTO8_w&feature=youtu.be

Margarita Marinova (standing next to the IceBreaker drill) talks to kids in Arizona, while Brian Glass and Bolek Mellerowicz look over remote drill operations 

birds eye view

If you're curious about what its like here at the base, here's this nifty webcam! Right now: its pretty nippy (-15 C with windchill) and foggy. I can't even see the seals on the ice from the base!

http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmwebcam.cfm