Back Home
I can't believe I am back home already. Antarctica is half a world away but is now a piece of who I am. My life will forever include references to the times I had there, the lessons I…
Celebrating and Waiting to Redeploy
On Friday we had our last expedition to Miers Valley. This trip had been rescheduled several times due to weather and that morning it did not look promising. It…
Last Requests
We have been trying to get in all of our last requests before closing out the field season for the Wormherders. There is a process for everything. To make sure there is an orderly…
In the Dark
For the past week we have been trying to get our final samples of the summer season here in the Dry Valleys. Our last sampling expeditions have been delayed by weather so the last few…
"In town" Means McMurdo
Panorama of McMurdo from Observation Hill.
The last few days of cloudy, snowy summer weather has kept us out of the Dry Valleys and away from our last sampling duties.…
What do you do all day?
Google must have heard me talking about microscopes because this picture from 14 years ago came up on my phone this morning. It's from a time my daughter and I found some…
A River Runs Through It
We recently came back from sampling in Wright Valley which is parallel to Taylor Valley. Wright Valley is a little dryer with fewer glaciers. It does have a glacier…
The walls have ears
Have you ever felt an unknown presence? Someone or something nearby but you just can't see them or hear them? In Beacon Valley the walls don't have ears (probably) but they…
Aeolian worlds
The Wormherder's search for life in the Dry Valleys is focused on soils. We have been collecting samples from a wide variety of habitats (from Antarctic perspective). We know soils…
King of the Polar Desert
It has been a dream of mine since working with collembola in grad school, to visit Antarctica and find some of these amazing animals. I knew from years of encyclopedia…
Overflowing with resources
Antarctica is known for ice and cold. Yes - also penguins. If you looked at a satellite image of the the Dry Valleys, you might not see a place covered in life forms. We…
Store in a cool dry place
An amazing thing about Antarctica is the different systems and rules the natural world plays by. All the laws of science are the same, it's just the combination of the…
