Astrobiologist Dale Andersen Antarctic Status Report 12 January 2018: Heading To Syowa Station
10 January 2018: Southbound For Antarctica: I am now back in Cape Town, South Africa awaiting tomorrow’s flight to the ice runway at Novolazarevskaya Station on the Antarctic continent.
I’ve been invited by colleagues at Japan’s National Institute of Polar Research to participate in their ongoing limnological research that is taking place just south of Syowa Station which is about 1000 km East of Novolazarevskaya Station (Novo). Numerous lakes with seasonal and perennial ice-covers are found within the archipelago, and our joint studies will focus on the ecology of these lakes.
The current plan is for me to fly to Novo tomorrow and the following day head to S17 by Basler (a converted DC-3 operated by ALCI and Ken Borek). S17 is the ice runway situated on the continental ice just ESE of Syowa Station.
A helicopter from the Japanese icebreaker Shirase will then transport me to a field camp located on Skarvsnes, one of the larger islands of the archipelago.
This remote field camp will be my home for the next several weeks while we explore, study and sample the various lakes and their ecosystems. It will be interesting to get underwater in these lakes and to compare them with other lakes we have studied including lakes Untersee and Obersee in Queen Maud Land, lakes of the Bunger Hills and in the McMurdo Dry Valleys.
11 January 2018 Update: “Dale Andersen is sharing their location at the MapShare website: https://share.garmin.com/DaleAndersen I’m starting my trip, follow along at my MapShare! nowo to syowa” Note: this Garmin tracking account also shows Dale’s field activity from November/December 2017 in the Novolazarevskaya Station/Lake Untersee region.
12 January 2018 Update: Dale has arrived at Syowa Station.
