In 1991, fossils of a previously unknown dinosaur species were found at a height of 13,000 feet (4,000 meters), near the summit of Mount Kirkpatrick in Antarctica. Cryolophosaurus ellioti had awaken after a long sleep. The creature's remains were located only 400 miles (650 kilometers) from the South Pole. Studies showed that it lived 170 million years ago, when Antarctica had a climate similar to that of Pacific Northwest — mild enough to support large plant-eating animal life, upon which the Cryolophosaurus preyed. Antarctica did not get cold until 40 million years ago, and previous to this time, the Earth is believed to have been an average of 10 degrees warmer. Also, evidence tells us that the first Antarctic ice sheets appeared about 35 million yea...

The IPY is ambitious in scope and in scale. The IPY Programme Office has endorsed 99 projects with Antarctic or bipolar focus for the IPY. These projects encompass at least 350 research activities, of which 82% plan to conduct fieldwork in Antarctica. Of these activities, 105 (37%) activities are planning to leave behind physical infrastructure. To date, only two have completed any environmental impact assessments. The Antarctic Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC) is conducting a project to enhance the environmental legacy of the IPY through outreach efforts to scientists, tourists and other visitors of Antarctica. We presented a poster on this subject at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, USA in December 2006. Our goal was to ra...

Climate change-induced increase of carbon dioxide, according to modelling approaches, is going to cause the acidification of the world’s oceans. By the year 2100 the current pH might drop by 0.5. Our research is focusing on the question ‘how do fish respond to such changes?’ At the department "Marine Animal Physiology" of the Alfred Wegener Institute, researchers developed a device that enables onboard measurements of the impact of decreased pH values on the gill functioning of freshly caught fish (see overview photograph). In order to simulate blood circulation, specially prepared gill tissue is constantly flushed with a saline solution. Special devices allow measurements to be taken of gill performance in plain and acidified seawater for more than 6 hours (see det...

Education and Outreach is playing an ever increasing role in the world of science. This is also true for our expedition especially with regard to the upcoming International Polar Year. Scientists, which rely on funding from the government, fulfil their obligation towards the general public and funding bodies by communicating their results in an easy and comprehensible manner. More and more scientific organisations such as the "Census of Marine Life" encourage liaisons between art and science. Unfortunately due to great scientific interest it was not possible to give an artist the opportunity to join the expedition. But an unexpected awakening of creativity, imagination, and artistic talent occurred onboard the “Polarstern”. Indeed these are skills that are also of high relevance to a...

“The Octopods are for the most part benthic or bentho-pelagic, living in holes or crevices, beneath large rocks or in caves… ” This has been the dogma of octopus habitat use for decades because observations have been limited to areas of the oceans where octopuses could be easily found: shallow, near-shore and typically rocky, habitats. But what of the majority of the ocean floor, where the bottom is characterized by muddy and sandy sediments, is there a place for octopuses here? The answer is "yes". Today’s technology enables us to see the ocean floor almost everywhere with high-resolution still photography and ROV-mounted video cameras. Images from the Polarstern’s first deployment of the photosled show octopuses burrowed in fine sediment, as seen in the attached image. Waters...

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On December 22nd 2006, after completing the Stellar Axis star map on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, artist Lita Albuquerque conducted a performance using an Archimedian Spiral and 51 volunteers from the nearby US McMurdo station. Starting at the center, the participants walked out along the spiral arms to the boundary of the installation taking 10 minutes to complete the journey. The star map around which they spiraled mirrored the sky above on the Southern Hemisphere's Summer Solstice. The event was filmed from a helicopter and from the ground. Photographs were taken by Jean de Pomereu of the International Polar Foundation. For more information, visit the Stellar Axis website and ...

Below is a list of Press officers responsible for launch events around the world. This is also available as a PDF of press_officers. Please also consult National IPY Committees for information on national events. ICSU: {encode=" This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it " title="Carthage Smith"}, ICSU Paris WMO: {encode=" This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it " title="Paul Garwood"}, WMO Australia: {encode=" This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it " title="Sally Chambers"}, Government Antarctic Division Canada: {encode=" This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it " title="Karen Edwards"}, Canadian IPY secret...

Penguins are the uncontested cutest birds worldwide. In the great colonies of the Emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) in the high Antarctic it happens often that young chicks die a natural death. This provided a unique opportunity for us (Sven Klimpel and Markus W. Busch) to analyse the parasitic fauna and stomach contents of these fascinating birds. Such investigations are important because they provide information on the life of the parasites and also on the habitats and general trophic status of the penguin hosts within the Antarctic ecosystem. The Emperor penguin colony close to the German Neumayer Station is one of approximately 35 known colonies in Antarctica. We collected 12 dead chicks for parasitological and feeding ecology examinations on board. It was found th...

So far, spawning grounds of most Antarctic fish species are not known. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of interest to locate these places and to protect them by international law. Rüdiger Riehl from the Institute of Zoomorpholgy, Cell Biology and Parasitology of the University of Duesseldorf might have found a way to do exactly that. During his research on fish eggs, which spans over 30 years, he has found that most of these eggs possess microstructures that allow the identification of specimens to the family level, genus level and even species level. The tool of choice is a scanning electron microscope (SEM), which is used to capture minute differences on photographs. He is using differences in the microstructure of the egg surface, for example the presence or absence...