Dale Andersen's Field Reports

Dale Andersen’s Astrobiology Antarctic Status Report: 11 December 2024: Back at Novo Station

By Keith Cowing

Status Report

Dale Andersen

December 11, 2024

Filed under Analog, Antarctica, Away Team, Dale Andersen, Enceladus, exobiology, expedition, extremophile, Lake Untersee, Limnology, Microbial mat, Novo Station, Novolazarevskaya Station, plume, ROV, SCUBA, SETI Institute, webcast

Dale Andersen’s Astrobiology Antarctic Status Report: 11 December 2024: Back at Novo Station — One of pur DataGarrison climate stations, situated at the top of the peninsula just behind our camp. While the station has a vantage point over both the north and south basins of Lake Untersee, this photo captures the view looking south across the southern basin. — Dale Andersen

Keith’s note: Astrobiologist Dale Andersen is back in Antarctica at Lake Untersee in October-December 2024 for another field season of research (preview). Dale’s work is coordinated through the SETI Institute. We’ll be posting his updates here. You can read about his prior exploits from this field season and past field seasons here.

Keith:

We’re now back at Novo Airbase (Novolazarevskaya Station) after arriving Monday afternoon, following a “quick” 4.5-hour snowmobile traverse from Lake Untersee. Monday night was spent cleaning up, resting a bit, and diving straight into sorting and packing our gear.

This morning, we’re seeing light snow here at Novo Airbase / ice runway, but the skies are expected to clear later in the day. Once they do, we’ll resume our work packing up and getting everything safely stored and organized for the next field season.

There’s still a bit left to wrap up before we head to Cape Town on the morning of the 14th. I’ll update you on our field season soon, starting from where we hit the geyser while preparing the dive hole—a memorable moment, to say the least! We’ve accomplished a great deal during our time here and I’m looking forward to sharing the details with you soon.

Enclosed is an image of one of our DataGarrison climate stations, situated at the top of the peninsula just behind our camp. While the station has a vantage point over both the north and south basins of Lake Untersee, this photo captures the view looking south across the southern basin.

Stay tuned!
Dale

Keith: Dale and I have been proving research updates – from Antarctica – since 1996. We think we actually had the first webserver (located in my old condo) updated from Antarctica. More details here: Dale Andersen’s 1996 Antarctic Field Research Photo Albums

Astrobiology

Keith Cowing

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻

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