How much volcanic and earthquake activity is there on the ultraslow-spreading Gakkel Ridge? Scientists have little idea because they have been unable to record earthquakes in this remote region. Large earthquakes on the ridge can be detected by seismometers far away in the global seismic network, but they don’t occur frequently enough to get sufficient data. Smaller earthquakes, magnitude 2 or less, occur several times a day, but they are too small to be “heard” by distant seismic stations. While Oden is in the neighborhood, Vera Schlindwein from the Alfred-Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany is installing seismometers on ice floes to record some of those mini-earthquakes over several days. She will retrieve them before we leave the area. Even this bit of data will allow...

The Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) has recently released the latest issue of the Australian Antarctic Magazine. The theme of this issue is the International Polar Year. AAD is participating in over 40 IPY projects and this issue of the magazine features some of these projects including the first marine research voyage for the AAD-coordinated Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML). You can download the Australian Antarctic Magazine, Issue 12, 2007 as a pdf here. For further information, please see the ...

Researchers and explorers will probe the Gakkel Ridge during expedition that begins on July 1. They will be using new robotic vehicles to hunt for life and hydrothermal vents on the Arctic seafloor. Researchers will use two new autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs)--Puma and Jaguar--in tandem to locate hydrothermal vent sites on the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. (Illustration by E. Paul Oberlander, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) More information can be found on the project website. ...

Professional photographers with a portfolio of images from the Arctic and Antarctic. To use any of their images, please negotiate directly with the photographer. OUR POLAR HERITAGE / Christian Morel Our Polar Heritage photographic project is proposed by the photographer Christian Morel and the Association Polar Planet. The objective is to work during the 2 years of the IPY to a very large, international, transversal and multidisciplinary set of artistic and professional photographic pictures in the Arctic and the Antarctic. Our Polar Heritage aims to reveal the high precision of the work achieved by women and men under extreme conditions, to illustrate...

The Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center, the National Science Foundation, and the Marine Technology Society's (MTS) ROV Committee invite you to our 6th Annual International Student ROV Competition. Forty-one teams representing middle schools, high schools, home schools, after-school groups, community colleges, and universities from the U.S., Canada, Hong Kong, Scotland, Spain, and Iran are scheduled to compete in this year’s event, which is being held June 22-24, 2007 on the campus of Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. In partnership with the International Polar Year (IPY), the 2007 competition highlights the science, history, and culture of our earth’s Polar Regions and the impact that these regions have on glob...

Contents: 1. IPO Notes 2. Current Operations 3. IPY science promotion days 4. Events, Meetings, and Conferences From: IPY International Programme Office To: IPY Project Coordinators cc: IPY Community Google Groups 1. IPO Notes In seeking to understand the IGY World Days for our discussion of IPY science promotion days (below), I discovered this quote from Dr. Hugh Odishaw, then Executive Director of the US National Committee for IGY: "My contention is a simple one: the IGY is the single most significant peaceful activity of mankind since the Renaissance and the Copernican Revolution." At the beginning of July, at the symposium '...

Education, Outreach, and Communication (EOC) in IPY are a continuum of activities and ideas. As with the rest of IPY 2007-8, the EOC components build on local and regional activities and needs, and utilise existing networks and technologies, to raise awareness of the polar regions. To this end, a group of educators from around the world met together to discuss strategies and activities that could build on existing structures, and help to raise awareness of the polar regions using existing resources. The suggestions of the educators were then passed on to two groups: one focussing on the needs of young researchers and early career scientists, and the other on the international media. The idea was to identify and develop activities that would serve the broadest ...

Education, Outreach, and Communication (EOC) in IPY are a continuum of activities and ideas. As with the rest of IPY 2007-8, the EOC components build on local and regional activities and needs, and utilise existing networks and technologies, to raise awareness of the polar regions. To this end, a group of educators from around the world met together to discuss strategies and activities that could build on existing structures, and help to raise awareness of the polar regions using existing resources. The suggestions of the educators were then passed on to two groups: one focussing on the needs of young researchers and early career scientists, and the other on the international media. The idea was to identify and develop activities that would serve the broadest ...

Researchers and explorers will probe the Gakkel Ridge during expedition that begins on July 1. They will be using new robotic vehicles to hunt for life and hydrothermal vents on the Arctic seafloor. Researchers will use two new autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs)--Puma and Jaguar--in tandem to locate hydrothermal vent sites on the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. (Illustration by E. Paul Oberlander, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) More information can be found on the project website. ...

From 1-14th July 2007, high-school students from across Australia and around the world will gather at The University of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia for the 34th International Science School (ISS), EcoScience – two weeks of scientific lectures, activities and social events with a focus on the environment and ecological science, and attention on IPY and the polar regions. On Thursday July 5th, 2007 at 7.00pm Sydney time, the ISS presents a unique opportunity for high-school students to participate in a global webcast discussing polar science. Students, teachers and interested observers attending this 45 minute event hosted in Sydney, both at the ISS and o...