Tag Archive for mcmurdo

NASA Researchers Discover Ancient Microbes in Antarctic Lake

from Terra Daily

by Karen Jenvey and Rachel Hoover for Ames Research Center
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Dec 05, 2012

In one of the most remote lakes of Antarctica, nearly 65 feet beneath the icy surface, scientists from NASA, the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno, Nev., the University of Illinois at Chicago, and nine other institutions, have uncovered a community of bacteria. This discovery of life existing in one of Earth’s darkest, saltiest and coldest habitats is significant because it helps increase our limited knowledge of how life can sustain itself in these extreme environments on our own planet and beyond.

Lake Vida, the largest of several unique lakes found in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, contains no oxygen, is mostly frozen and possesses the highest nitrous oxide levels of any natural water body on Earth. . . . Read Complete Report

Keep on truckin’ South Pole Traverse adds second train, tests robotic tractors

from Antarctic Sun

By Peter Rejcek, Antarctic Sun Editor
Posted May 4, 2012

 

Ten years ago, the idea to drive across more than 1,000 miles of Antarctic wilderness between McMurdo and South Pole  stations as an alternative way to supply the latter with fuel and cargo was just an audacious idea.

[Ignored is any mention of the “snow Cruiser” taken to Antarctica with much fan fair and never to be mentioned again after offloading in Antarctica. See link below . . . EDITOR]

Now, Traverse Operations has two traverse platforms, South Pole Traverse 1 and 2 (SPoT1 and SPoT2), each making a round trip every austral summer between the U.S. Antarctic Program External U.S. government site research stations. It saves the National Science Foundation upwards of $2 million for each swing across the continent. And, perhaps in the next couple of years, the tractor train will partially drive itself, using “robotic” vehicles capable of autonomously following a manned tractor in front of it. . . . Read Complete Article

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dig Deeper: “Admiral Byrd’s 1939 Antarctic Expedition & the Mysterious Snow Cruiser”.