The field campaign is finishing!!

Hello from Princess Elisabeth Station!

This might be our last day in the station before leaving to start the trip to go back to Belgium. The time flies!! Today, we are packing all the laboratory material and samples we have to bring with us. This evening all the cargo boxes will be stored on a big sledge and tomorrow morning, around 7 a.m., we will all departure to Perseus, the closest airstrip for big cargo. Although Perseus is not so many kilometers away from the station, it will take us at least 6 hours to arrive there, because we will be traveling inside containers and bringing big sledges, so the speed won’t be over 20 km / h. In Perseus, we will also need quite some time to get the flight prepared, as everything we are bringing needs to be store inside the plane, including big containers. Then, we would depart to South Africa and we may stop in Novo station again or not, we still don’t know. As everyone says here, “You know when you arrive to Antarctica but never when you will leave”.

Concerning the project, this week has been very productive as we were very lucky with the weather conditions, which allowed us to map with the drone the whole nunataks we have been sampling during these three years. So, finally we have been able to accomplish all the objectives of the project! We’ve been in Teltet, Perlebandet North, Pingvuinane South and North and Petrellnuten. In the two first nunataks, we had to reach the summit, because the drone needs to be controlled from there, so Juri could see where it is going during the whole flight. Therefore, we’ve had the opportunity to practice some hiking and enjoy amazing views from the top! Here, you can see some of them!

View of Utsteinen nunatak and the PEA station from Teltet summit. As you can see, there was almost white out this day.

 

Another view from Teltet nunatak

Valentina and Raphy going down Perlebandet North summit

The other side of Perlebandet North nunatak

Finally, last night we gave a short talk to everyone in the station to explain them what we have been doing during this campaign and the objectives of the project. Valentina showed some preliminary results from previous years, Quentin explained what kind of information from the nunataks he is obtaining with satellites data and Bea introduced the importance of the biocrusts in drylands and why she is sampling them in Antarctica. Tonight, Juri will show some results obtained with the drone. We believe is important to show to the rest of the crew working in the station what we are doing here, as without their help we would not have been able to achieve all our objectives. From here, we thank all of them for their help: Raphy for been an excellent field guide, always willing to help; the station managers, for organizing all the work so we get it done on time; chefs who provide us with super tasty food; the rest of the crew for always helping when we needed a hand with many things, such as the skidoos or to build everything we might need (as a big wooden box they made). Also, the rest of the scientists and in general everyone in the station, with whom we spent very funny and friendly moments, interesting discussions, hikes or just enjoying some free time, playing some games or drinking a beer on Saturday night. The “Antarctic spirit” that one can feel when living with such a nice group of people for one month, in this case, sharing everything and working together to make the station a charming place to inhabit, is an amazing experience that probably most of us won’t ever forget.

The MICROBIAN team

Skype meetings with schools in Belgium and Spain

Hello!

During the last two weeks, Valentina and Bea had two Skype calls with two different schools in Spain and Belgium. Henri Robert, the scientific manager of the Princess Elizabeth Station had organized both meetings with the students and asked for our participation, as we could speak with them in Spanish and French, respectively, apart from English. The aim of these meetings with the students was:

•  to arise their awareness about the importance of protecting Antarctica and the consequences of the climate change
• how PEA station could be taken an example as it is the first zero emission Antarctic station
• which are the main scientific projects that are participating to BELARE 2019-20
• how is the life in the station .

The first online meeting was done with the Escola Reina Elisenda Virolai, from Barcelona (Spain). Approximately twenty 8-years-old kids with their teachers attended it. Each one had prepared a question in English that they asked to Henri or Bea. They were interested in many different aspects, such as which animals can be seen in this region; how is the daily life in the station; how do we move from one site to another; what is the origin of the energy used here; how is the waste water treatment or how do we spend our free time here. They were very excited and motivated to have this contact with researchers from Antarctica. All of them said they would like to become scientists and work here. Also, after pointing out that more women are needed to come and work in Antarctica, as at the PEA station they are just 4 of the 37 people working here, all the girls wanted to participate even more.

The second online meeting was done with the high school “École Montjoie”, from Brussels (Belgium). In this case, they were mainly 17-years-old students, who also prepared a few questions to address to Henri and Valentina. One of the most interesting question they asked was our position concerning climate change. We could then explain what are the main issues that we try to understand.

We think that it is important to make science more accessible to children, as well as the rest of society. However, as Henri pointed out, children are easier to get touched by the importance of taking care of our planet and become very easily passionate about doing science, in this case, in Antarctica. It is also well-known the higher participation of women in research, especially in the first steps of the scientific career (such as PhD students or young postdocs), compared with previous years. However, the low rate of women at the station is a very clear example of the improvements that still need to be done to overcome the gender inequalities in science. Motivating young girls to choose a scientific or technical career and showing them referent women undertaking this kind of jobs, it is of importance to build a more equal future world.

Therefore, we are very happy to help Henri motivating future generations to protect Antarctica, as well as the whole planet, and overcome gender and other kind of discrimination.

The MICROBIAN team

News from Antarctica

Good afternoon from Antarctica!

Today we are officially taking our first day off. Thanks to the great weather conditions we were able to complete almost all the essential tasks of this campaign. Most of the sampling and the high resolution elevation models have been completed. This is the first time such high resolution imagery has been taken consistently for these sites! We are now off for a week and a half of least priority tasks and packing. Being the third and last campaign of the MICROBIAN project, we have quite some material that has to be sent back to Belgium.

Yesterday, we went back to the Dry Valleys and while Quinten and Juri were busy mapping one of our last sites, Valentina and Bea carried out the planned contamination experiment. This experiment´s aim is to provide the scientific underpinning for policy support related to the Committee on Environmental Protection of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), by assessing potential means of cross-contamination of (alien) microorganisms between different ice-free region. 

Bea sampling Valentina´s boots

 The MICROBIAN team