Dale Andersen's Astrobiology Field Report: Axel Heiberg

I am currently in the high arctic sitting (Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut, Canada) in a tent next to the Stolz Diapir spring site at Whitsunday Bay.

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Wayne Pollard, his graduate student Melissa Ward and I are here to continue our investigations of these remarkable perennial springs. We arrived the day before yesterday by Twin Otter which dropped us off 5 or 6 miles out on the fiord since the snow near the spring site was not good enough for a landing and the first mile or two of the fiord were choked with rough ice.

It took us a few extra hours to get the camp set up, but by midnight we had all of our tents up, a stove going and a nice meal before heading off to bed around 2 am. It was in the low minus thirties (*C) again last night, but this morning with the bright sun and blue skies we are into the much more comfortable minus twenties. Its wonderful to be here again! We will start sampling the springs today.

Sent by Dale Andersen to Astrobiology.com via Iridium satellite phone