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Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access

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  • 21 Members of the Science Team Arrive at McMurdo Station and Geophysics Team Moves to Whillans Subglacial Lake December 10, 2018
  • SALSA Traverse Arrives at Camp 20 and Geophysics Team Continues Work with MT Stations December 5, 2018
  • Meet Principal Investigator Brad Rosenheim December 3, 2018

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Field Blog: SALSA

21 Members of the Science Team Arrive at McMurdo Station and Geophysics Team Moves to Whillans Subglacial Lake

21 Members of the Science Team Arrive at McMurdo Station and Geophysics Team Moves to Whillans Subglacial Lake

SALSA Field Report 12.10.2018 Science Team Update On Thursday, December 6th, 21 members of the science team arrived at McMurdo Station. They are currently undergoing training, packing and unpacking cargo, and testing gear in preparation for their upcoming flight to Subglacial Lake Mercer. The team is busy completing the yearly trainings for field safety and […]

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It's a long trip to get to Antarctica. Check out these photos from the SALSA Science Team's trip aboard a C-130 Hercules from Christchurch, New Zealand to McMurdo Station! Also, you can read our latest field blog here: https://salsa-antarctica.org/2018/12/10/3427/
The SALSA Science team has arrived in McMurdo Station Antarctica! Over the next two weeks, the team will be unpacking, repacking, cleaning, testing, planning, planning and planning some more for upcoming science operations at Mercer Subglacial Lake!
What does SALSA research have to do with space? It turns out that Antarctica's subglacial lakes are an astrobiologist's dream. While studying the sediments in Subglacial Lake Whillans during the Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling (WISSARD) project during the 2012-13 season, Chief Scientist John Priscu discovered methanotrophs (methane-consuming bacteria) that exist in the subglacial lake without sunlight. Our hypothesis is that if life can exist in Antarctica's subglacial lakes, which are thousands of feet under ice, life could exist elsewhere in the universe and even in our own solar system. Jupiter's moon Europa (first photo) and Saturn's moon Enceladus (second photo) both have their own oceans that are under ice and could harbor life. Photo credit: @nasa
The SALSA Traverse has arrived at Camp 20! The Geophysics Team continues to make progress installing Magnetotelluric (MT) stations on the Ice and the Drill Team is making preparations for the upcoming work at Mercer Subglacial Lake. Read more about our progress on the latest field blog here: https://wordpress.com/post/salsa-antarctica.org/3394
Meet Principal Investigator Brad Rosenheim! This season, Brad will work on understanding the Mercer Subglacial Lake ecosystem and its history by employing ramped pyrolysis radiocarbon analysis to sediment from Mercer Subglacial Lake. Read more about Brad here: https://salsa-antarctica.org/2018/12/03/meet-principal-investigator-brad-rosenheim/
The Antarctic subglacial environment is a dynamic ecosystem where ice, water, and sediment form a web of complex interactions. The discipline of geomicrobiology, the study of the interaction between microorganisms and their physical environment, is critical to our research. Based on the WISSARD project's previous research at Subglacial Lake Whillans, we hypothesize that Mercer Subglacial Lake supports an ecosystem of microscopic organisms that exists without the presence of sunlight. Instead of photosynthesis, microbes in Antarctica's subglacial lakes survive through transforming organic matter such as relict organic carbon into energy through a process called chemolithoautotrophy. In three weeks, we will drill 1,000 meters (3,200 feet) into the ice to find out what’s in Mercer Subglacial Lake. What we find could help us to form better hypotheses about life on other planetary subglacial water systems, like on Mars or Jupiter’s moon Europa.
Good news! Yesterday, the SALSA traverse (a caravan of tractors towing drilling and camp equipment) left McMurdo to begin their 650 mile journey to Lake Mercer. See the short film following last year's traverse here...https://vimeo.com/268874448 They are scheduled to arrive at Lake Mercer on Dec. 11th where they will begin setting up camp and prepping the ski-plane runway for the arrival of the science team. #nsfsalsa #nsffunded #antarctica #landscapephotography #landscape_captures #research
Meet PI Brent Christner! He is a microbiologist and is studying the composition of the microbial communities in Mercer Subglacial Lake and the metabolisms they perform. You can read more about Brent on our blog post here: https://salsa-antarctica.org/2018/11/26/meet-principal-investigator-brent-christner/ @uflorida
Lead Driller Dennis Duling included this photo of unloading the SCINI winch near the Launch and Recovery System (LARS) deck in his most recent field report. Check out all of our field reports at https://salsa-antarctica.org/18-19-field-reports/.
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