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January 2008
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2008-09 January Team
In January, 2009, a team of eighteen people arrived in Antarctica to complete the first nzTABS field season. Building upon the work of the November, 2008 field team, the goals of the January team were to complete the sampling and surveying of the tiles within the study site, and to maintain and develop environmental monitoring programmes important to scientific research in the Dry Valleys. Over the course of three weeks, this team completed one of the largest soil sampling and surveying efforts on the continent to date.
Collecting Soil Samples in the Miers Valley. -Len Doel |
The team arrived at Scott Base on January 3rd and completed the training and preparations required for working in the extreme and remote Antarctic environment, before departing from Scott Base on January 7th. At this time, the team split into four main groups. Three groups were flown by helicopter to different camps in the Dry Valleys, with 6 people each at the Miers Valley and Garwood Valley camps, and 4 people at the Shangri-la camp. The fourth group, consisting of two people, was based at the US McMurdo Station with the primary charge of processing samples collected by the field teams. This arrangement allowed for all field teams to complete necessary field collections at over 450 different areas in the study site, and for the samples to be flown back to the team at McMurdo Station for time-sensitive analyses.
The field operations ran smoothly for the majority of January. Sampling and surveying teams would hike out from the camps in pairs every day to collect samples and complete vegetation surveys at each sample site. Upon return to the camp, samples were processed for geochemical, biochemical, and genetic analyses, and every second day a helicopter was scheduled to transport samples from the field camps back to the team at McMurdo Station. Each camp was able to complete surveying and sampling on approximately 15 to 20 sites per day in the first week, until heavy snow slowed progress. For approximately five days, intermittent snow kept teams from sampling, as vegetation surveys could not be completed on the snow-covered ground. Sampling and surveying continued again once the snow melted, but a few high-elevation tiles remained snow-covered and inaccessible for the remainder of the season. Despite these complications, the team managed to nearly complete the sampling programme, collecting 450 soil samples and completing 435 vegetation surveys in their three weeks in the field.
Conducting a vegetation survey. -Don Cowan |
The January team also completed a number of tasks useful for continuous monitoring of weather and physical processes in the Dry Valleys. Data from weather stations in the study site were downloaded and the stations serviced to operate properly for the upcoming year. Soil temperature probes, called iButtons, were also deployed at sites throughout the Dry Valleys, with a total of 236 iButtons deployed by the January team. Two time lapse cameras were set up to take photos every 6 hours in the Miers and Garwood Valleys to monitor patterns in snow accumulation and ablation for the remainder of the summer as long as lighting would allow. Sediment from 56 buntpan sediment traps and 16 dust traps were collected, and the traps redeployed to monitor patterns in wind transport of sediments through the valleys.
Overall, the January team completed an extremely successful first field season for the nzTABS project, leaving minimal sampling and surveying work to be completed during the upcoming 2009/2010 season and setting up several unique monitoring programs that will be critical in the upcoming season and for years to come.
The January Team ready to head out to the field. |
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