Submitted by Cristina Millan on October 14, 2007. For a few hours early on our second night [of drilling at ANDRILL] we went to the ice edge, just 8 km from the drill site. It was really special! Not only because of the views and the beautiful dusk colors, but also because of the penguins that hang out there. We approached the edge carefully, watching for signs of thinned ice, and saw a few Emperor penguins lounging around in the distance. As soon as we got off the skidoos a group of 10-12 penguins ran towards us to check us out. We stood still and got our cameras ready. I thought they would move away once they got close, but instead they came even closer…I could almost touch them. ...

By Cristina Millan, sublitted October 13, 2007: Many projects in Antarctica are 24/7 operations, and ANDRILL is no exception. We take advantage of the 24 hours of continuous daylight at this time of the year. (Well, there is a short 'night' period between midnight and 3 or 4 in the morning, when the sun goes down a bit but never really goes under and so it looks like dusk. This is getting shorter every day and soon the sun will be all the way up and move in a tight circle above.) It makes for an exhausting working season but it also is much more efficient. Night view of Mt. Erebus as seen from the drill s...

Cristina Millan writes: What’s different this year? A new drill hole and a new location (at the ANDRILL Southern McMurdo Sound (MSM) drill site), new drill and science teams (some returns, though), new expectations, new worries, new results… and a new job for me. This year we are about 30 km from McMurdo station, so those of us working at the drill site live at a camp specially set up for this operation AND within 5 minutes walking distance of the drill rig (which is nice change form last year’s hour-long commute to the site!!) The camp is great! Quite a set-up, overall, when I think of how most people do research here, and what a logistical nightmare living and working in Antarctica is. I will have some photos and stories about my ‘home...

Antarctic Ecological Genomics PhD Opportunities 1) Ecological genomics of the invertebrate response to ocean acidification 2) Ecological genomics of the vertebrate/invertebrate response to shifts in food supply We invite applications from highly-motivated molecular biology and/or biochemistry postgraduate candidates to contribute to a project investigating stress effects on the Antarctic marine ecosystem utilizing genomics-based approaches. Two PhD projects are on offer, each contributing to an objective of this FRST-funded International Polar Year Project. The Antarctic marine ecosystem is under threat as a result of global climate change combined with other anthropogenic influences (e.g. fishing, tourism). We need to understand ecosystem...

By Cristina Millan Well, it’s been just under 10 months since my last posting but the thing is: I am back in Antarctica. Last year I spent three months here working on the ANDRILL Project (check here for last year’s amazing season). ANDRILL (ANtarctic DRILLing) is a multinational project involving four countries (US, New Zealand, Italy, and Germany) with the goal of recovering sediments from the sea floor. One of the aims of this project is to gain a better understanding of global climatic change, in which Antarctica plays a very important role. The structural geology group (to which I belong, together with three other colleagues) is also interested in the broader geologic history of the area where we are drilling: how and w...

SIPEX Update: 28 September – 10 October We have bid a fond farewell to the sea ice as we have reached the edge of the ice zone and are now in the open ocean heading for Hobart and home, so it is time for a short review of the last couple of weeks. When I last wrote, we were pretty much stationary in an area of heavily deformed ice, waiting for the ice pack to break up a bit and make travelling easier. Some of the biologists on board had noticed that the ice we were breaking through in that area was very brown on the underside. The brown colouring comes from the algae that live in and on the underside of the ice and are an important part of the sea ice ecosystem. There had been little algae in the sea ice we had sampled so far on this voyage and the biologist...

A new listserv is being created to facilitate the exchange of information among graduate students conducting research on the circumpolar North in the social sciences and humanities. Those with interests in environmental history are particularly encouraged to participate. The listserv will provide the means for building professional relationships, communicating funding and conference news, sharing resources, and facilitating dialogue on the unique challenges of northern research among young scholars. Participation by researchers in all fields of the humanities and social sciences is welcome. If you are interested, please contact the coordinator Brad Martin. Brad Martin PhD Candidate Department...

The first International Polar Science Day was held on September 21st and focussed on Sea Ice. The second will occur on Thursday, December 13th, and will focus on Ice Sheets, Traverses, and Exploration. Below is a list of IPY projects that study, or are concerned with, some aspect of Ice Sheets. Their webpages contain a huge amount of information, and the full proposals contain contact information at the end. The following list includes IPY ID and chart name, and short title: 13 Sea Level & Tides in Polar Regions 20 ...

Contents: 1. Reminder: Joint Committee Assessment 2. Reminder: AGU 3. IPY Science Days 4. Young and Early Career Polar Researchers 5. Polar Ambassadors 6. Observational Legacies From: IPY International Programme Office To: IPY Project Coordinators cc: IPY Community Google Groups 1. Reminder: Joint Committee Assessment As described in our September 2007 report, we solicit input from IPY Project Coordinators and from IPY National Committees for the IPY Joint Committee meeting later this month. The Joint Committee will assess the overall IPY programme as it exists, and welcomes comment on any aspects of IPY, particularly on actions or changes that could he...

By Sandy Zicus, Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre We’re now a bit more than three weeks into our six-week Sea Ice Physics and Ecosystems eXperiment (SIPEX) adventure. On 18 September, we entered a section of land-fast ice surrounded by huge grounded icebergs, some of which have walls up to 50 metres high. It was impossible to capture the true scale with a camera (although most of us kept trying), especially when there was nothing of a known size in view to serve as a reference. Land-fast ice, often called just ‘fast ice’, is sea ice that is attached to land or to grounded icebergs. Fast ice is a bit different in character from regular sea ice. It is more or less permanent in one area and is generally not moved arou...