In April of 2008 a team of scientists and Canadian Rangers will traverse the northern coast of Ellesmere Island to study the state of the ice shelves and associated ecosystems in this remote region. The Canadian high Arctic is undergoing substantial climate-related changes; ice shelves along Ellesmere's northern coast that have been attached to the shore for thousands of years, some over 30 meters thick, and thousands of square kilometers of land-fast sea-ice have been breaking-up. The loss of these dominant features has dramatically changed the coastal landscape, leading to the drainage of massive volumes of freshwater from fiords previously dammed by the ice shelves and the creation of vast ice islands. These physical changes are altering the habitat of aquatic microbial communities ex...

Free lecture - Arctic Caribou for International Polar Year Come to the Canadian Museum of Nature on April 1 for a free lecture by wildlife biologist Karsten Heuer about Arctic Caribou. The presentation is the launch of a national speakers series for International Polar Year. Research frenzy greets Arctic spring ABOARD CCGS AMUNDSEN-After being icebound on the Coast Guard's Amundsen icebreaker for nearly four days, dozens of researchers yesterday fanned out on the ice in a controlled scientific frenzy. They're racing against time to begin taking measurements and placing crucial detectors before the looming chemical and biological explosion o...

360-degree panoramas are more and more the rage because they are wonderfully immersive and give users the chance to explore a space themselves. Panoramas of the polar regions are especially interesting, as very few people get the chance to visit these places, so anything that gives us an inkling of what it is like there is welcome. The latest issue of VRMag, an online magazine of panoramic photos, contains a huge collection of polar and ice-themed panoramas. Here is a brief description of what is inside: Jordi Clariana, takes you on a 2 weeks photographic expedition to the Svalbard Island; Witek Katzskin, who lives and works at the Horsund polish Polar station shares his experiences; Dr Matt Nol...

Submitted March 16, 2008: By John Mitchell, Voyage Leader Midday Friday, and all the sampling on Admiralty Seamount was completed. Our survey time has run out and we’re heading home. It’s a 1550 nautical mile steam from the Admiralty Seamount to Wellington, which will take just under 6 days if the weather is kind to us. If not, it could be much longer. Photo: NIWA’s research ship Tangaroa working in heavy pack ice, Peter Marriott A summary of what we’ve achieved: 39 sampling sites from the shelf, slope, abyss ...

By Jan Strugnell Today we set sail for Antarctica at 5pm. Everyone was very excited to finally get going and we all climbed up on the monkey deck as we sailed out from Stanley and started to cross the Drake Passage. There were some seals playing in the water and they were as interested in us as we were in them! It is pretty windy (about 35 knots) and so the ship is rocking a bit, but not too badly. I've managed to avoid seasickness, but have been quite sleepy (a symptom of sea sickness) and so have been sleeping very well despite the rocking. Today we have been getting ready for trawling, which will start in a few days time. Everyone is pretty excited to see what we will catch as very little trawling has been done in this area and there wil...

Submitted March 12, 2008: By John Mitchell, Voyage Leader One of the many heavily eroded bergs seen in the northern Ross Sea (Photo: John Mitchell). We’ve spent the last two days sampling the Admiralty Seamount which has a large (12 x 5 nautical miles) flat top at about 460 m deep, and very steep flanks dropping to over 3000 m. The sampling has shown the top to be rather sparse biologically, apart from a couple of small areas which have an abundant and diverse fauna. Further sampling of those areas will be done later in the week. Although we are north of the pack-ice and acc...

By Jan Strugnell, British Antarctic Survey Today we all joined the RRS James Clark Ross (JCR) at Port Stanley, Falkland Islands, to get ready for our cruise! The JCR is almost 100m long and seems enormous when it is docked at Stanley. The hull is painted bright red and the words ‘James Clark Ross’ are written in large white letters at the front. The JCR was named after Admiral Sir James Clark Ross, R.N. (1800-1862) who discovered the North Magnetic Pole in 1831. During 1840-43 he also made three voyages to Antarctica in an attempt to reach the South Magnetic Pole, and to undertake a range of scientific studies of the region. The JCR can hold 80 people, and for our cruise we have 24 sc...

Download PDF pic: Icicles form as meltwater drips from winter sea ice grounded as the tide drops. Rothera Point, Adelaide Island, Antarctica. Pete Bucktrout (British Antarctic Survey) In order to understand how climate change is affecting the Southern Ocean ecosystem, it is necessary to understand the context in which change occurs. What was the Southern Ocean ecosystem like 10 years ago, 50 years ago or 5,000 years ago? Long-term monitoring combined with techniques which provide clues about the distant past, suc...

Photo: Scott Island with Haggit’s Pillar to the left. By John Mitchell By John Mitchell, Voyage Leader After completion of the first abyssal station in the northern part of our survey – at a depth of 3500m – we moved on to our last seamount station next to Scott Island. Scott Island is very small (400m by 200m) and isolated, lying about 310 nautical miles northeast from Cape Adare. Its companion – Haggit’s Pillar – is an impressive 62m high volcanic stack sitting 200m northwest of the island. We are sampling in this area to compare the biodiversity with that of the Balleny...

By John Mitchell, Voyage Leader. Now we are out of the inner Ross Sea the focus of the voyage has changed to sampling seamounts (underwater mountains) and the abyss (seafloor in the deep ocean 2000–4000 m). We’re surveying a series of seamounts, concentrating on the Scott complex around Scott Island north of the Ross Sea, at about 68 ºS, 180º followed by the Admiralty chain further to the west. Even further west are the Balleny Islands and associated seamounts, which will not be visited this trip as they have already been sampled during previous Tangaroa voyages. The composition of the fauna has gradually changed and reduced in quantity (but not quality) as we have moved north and is now ‘transitional’ i.e., is a mixture containing fauna typical of both the Ross ...