Antarctica Sea Ice Microbial Ecology
Investigating the unexplored components of sea ice ecology
During the Austral spring (September and October) join Jeff Bowman, and fellow Deming Ecosystem team member Shelly Carpenter, as they undertake an investigation of several unexplored or underexplored components of sea Ice Microbial Ecology within McMurdo Sound, Antarctica.
Jeff is publishing a blog on his activities that cover topics like "Waiting for the dust to settle" (the McMurdo staff scrambling to accommodate new scientist) and "Cracks, corers and cause for celebration (exploring cracks and fractures in sea ice).
Here is just a sample of what Jeff is writing about: ... On Saturday night we got some new satellite images showing that much of the new pack ice that’s been forming off of Cape Royds had sheared away from the landfast ice in McMurdo Sound, leaving a very large lead open west of the Cape. Not wanting to waste the opportunity Shelly and I made a last minute decision to head out and see if frost flowers were forming. Dan graciously gave up his day off to join us. We got off to a late start, we’ve all been pushing pretty hard of late and are getting slower in the morning! The need to bridge a large crack in the ice that’s gotten worse over the last couple of days slowed us further, and by the time we got to Tent Island (roughly half way to the ice edge off of Cape Royds) we were running out of time and the weather was deteriorating.
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