Keith’s note: Dale Andersen is preparing for his second expedition to Lake Untersee, Antarctica for 2026. The first 2026 Field season at Lake Untersee was conducted from January – March 2026 (see reports). Dale’s research is coordinated through the Carl Sagan Center within the SETI Institute. We will be posting their updates here and at the SETI Institute.
Dale’s research cargo is now en route to JFK airport and eventually to Cape Town South Africa and then to Antarctica. Dale departs the U.S. for a similar trip on 19 October with an arrival on “The Ice” around 25 October. He will arrive at Lake Untersee a few days after that via an overland traverse – logistics and weather permitting.
Dale’s overview of the Fall 2026 field season:
The Fall 2026 field season’s joint investigations center on recovering sediment cores, 2 to 3 m long, from Lake Untersee for dating and geochemical analysis. Hopefully there will aso be samples collected from local moraines to pin down glacial movement more precisely over time.
As for Lake Untersee itself, radiocarbon alone cannot give a reliable chronology of the lake’s sediments and when they were deposited (old mat layers). Melting glacial ice releases ancient CO2 into the lake, and the perennial ice cover limits exchange with the modern atmosphere, so the dissolved inorganic carbon is depleted in 14C.
Our existing radiocarbon dates show that living microbial surface mats, which fix that carbon, return apparent ages of about 10,000 years when analyzed. This ‘reservoir’ effect is well documented in Antarctic lakes, although its size varies from lake to lake. The dating of our collected samples will be done in Japan, where our colleagues are equipped for independent methods such as luminescence dating.
Other research topics will be pursued as well – but the coring work is the most exciting for me right now. I worked with several of our Japanese team members in 2018, at Syowa Station and at field sites along the Sôya Coast, so this will be a nice reunion on the ice.
I last worked with the Indian team in 2012, during their short visit to Lake Untersee. Their logistics were unexpectedly constrained that year, so we couldn’t carry out some of the work we had planned. This season gives all of us the opportunity to do joint research at the lake.
We will have two postdocs and a PhD student this year. The other two are from Birgit Sattler’s lab, University of Innsbruck. One of the postdocs, Jessica Todd, is from Caltech and working with me, our ROV maybe with diving operations.
Base Camp at Lake Untersee, Antarctica January 2026 – Dale T. Andersen. (Larger image)
How This All Started
Keith’s note: Dale and I first met in 1987 at the old NASA Headquarters Life Science Division, and we have been doing this kind of research reporting together ever since. You can read his previous field research reports, going all the way back to 1996, here.
We are both Fellow Members of The Explorers Club, which earlier this year honored Dale with the prestigious Explorers Club Finn Ronne Memorial Award. As The Explorers Club put it: “Andersen’s work continues to inspire exploration, advancing public understanding of planetary science and the resilience of life.”
Lake Untersee, Antarctica and surrounding features – NASA/Google Earth
Join us as we follow Dale back to Lake Untersee in Antarctica and explore, virtually, the hidden world beneath its thick ice. There, a microbial ecosystem dominated by cyanobacteria offers a window into Earth’s earliest biosphere. Research in this extreme environment helps us think more about what life we might find on Mars and other icy worlds. These remote expeditionary activities in a harsh environment are directly relevant to the off-world exploration that Artemis crews will conduct on the Moon – and beyond.
To set the stage, watch this short film Dale made, “Whispers Beneath the Ice: Discovering the Hidden Life of Lake Untersee.” It offers a first look at this stark, beautiful place – and a hint of the discoveries that may lie ahead. Watch in 4K with the sound up.
Lake Untersee (71.342° S, 13.473° E): It’s a place few people have seen or even imagined, and distant from familiar, everyday surroundings. The weather can be as harsh as the terrain at times, with winds and blinding snow reaching 110 mph.
For four months the darkness is company only to the sounds of cracking ice and the ever-present howling of the winds. The surrounding mountains rise up majestically to soaring, pinnacled peaks, blocking the passage of the continental ice that surrounds them. The gentle slope of the Anuchin Glacier flows in from the north, halting at its edge. Lake Untersee, within the mountains of Queen Maud Land, is a world that resembles Earth’s earliest biosphere – one dominated by microbial life forming the same fabrics and structures that we see preserved in sediments dating back 3.45 billion years.
Beneath the thick perennial ice cover are cyanobacterial mats growing undisturbed as they did billions of years ago – its like a postcard from the past; one that can help us understand how those early ecosystems thrived on a planet with an atmosphere nearly devoid of oxygen.
Yet these cyanobacteria unlocked new secrets for life—they learned to harness sunlight, splitting water to release electrons and hydrogen, which they combined with carbon dioxide from the air to weave complex organic molecules. The oxygen, a mere metabolic leftover, drifted into the environment, unnoticed at first. In releasing oxygen, they ignited a quiet revolution that, over eons, transformed our planet into a world capable of sustaining complex, multicellular life.
Lake Untersee is a difficult place to live and work. But we are seeking new knowledge. Knowledge that will inform us about Earth’s past history and help us understand its future. Our research also helps guide the search for evidence of life on other distant worlds such as Mars or the outer moons of Jupiter or Saturn…or beyond.
We are both Fellow Members of The Explorers Club, which earlier this year honored Dale with the prestigious Explorers Club Finn Ronne Memorial Award. As The Explorers Club put it: “Andersen’s work continues to inspire exploration, advancing public understanding of planetary science and the resilience of life.”
Join us as we follow Dale back to Lake Untersee in Antarctica and explore, virtually, the hidden world beneath its thick ice. There, a microbial ecosystem dominated by cyanobacteria offers a window into Earth’s earliest biosphere. Research in this extreme environment helps us think more about what life we might find on Mars and other icy worlds. These remote expeditionary activities in a harsh environment are directly relevant to the off-world exploration that Artemis crews will conduct on the Moon – and beyond.
To set the stage, watch this short film Dale made, “Whispers Beneath the Ice: Discovering the Hidden Life of Lake Untersee.” It offers a first look at this stark, beautiful place – and a hint of the discoveries that may lie ahead. Watch in 4K with the sound up.
Fall Field Season 2026
Dale and his team will begin their expedition at the Ultima Airbase (approximately 70.823° S, 11.641° E), operated by Ultima Antarctic Logistics out of Cape Town. Their closest neighbors on the ice are the nearby research stations at Schirmacher Oasis: Maitri, managed by India’s National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, and Novolazarevskaya, (‘Novo Station’) operated by the Russian Antarctic Expedition.
You can see what conditions are like on the ice runway via this webcam operated by Ultima Antarctic Logistics. On many days you will see low clouds, flat light, and windy conditions – not a lot of contrast or detail. The camera view looks west. Most flights arrive via an approach from the west, landing into prevailing winds from the east. As conditions change, you may see the big IL-76 on the apron. Sometimes the wings of Ken Borek Basler transports (rebuilt/modified DC-3s) and Twin Otters appear in the frame as well.
Planes on the Novo runway Left to right: Twin Otter; IL-76TD, Basler BT-67 (remanufactured and modified Douglas C-47 Skytrain / Douglas DC-3)
If you check the location of the UltimaAirbase on FlightRadar24, you can see the runway QAO/AT17. Depending on when you look, you may catch aircraft arriving or departing, along with other flights in the region – some research, some sightseeing. You can also see what is happening on the Novo Station runway via this webcam which updates every 10 minutes (when it is working, that is – and it often does not).
Traverse team prepares for departure from Ultima Air strip to Lake Untersee — Dale Andersen (fuzzy photo taken and sent en route)
Once Dale and his team have loaded their small convoy of snowmobiles and tractors with gear, they turn south toward their destination: Lake Untersee.
Lake Untersee – by Dale Andersen
Lake Untersee (71.342° S, 13.473° E): It’s a place few people have seen or even imagined, and distant from familiar, everyday surroundings. The weather can be as harsh as the terrain at times, with winds and blinding snow reaching 110 mph.
For four months the darkness is company only to the sounds of cracking ice and the ever-present howling of the winds. The surrounding mountains rise up majestically to soaring, pinnacled peaks, blocking the passage of the continental ice that surrounds them. The gentle slope of the Anuchin Glacier flows in from the north, halting at its edge. Lake Untersee, within the mountains of Queen Maud Land, is a world that resembles Earth’s earliest biosphere – one dominated by microbial life forming the same fabrics and structures that we see preserved in sediments dating back 3.45 billion years.
Beneath the thick perennial ice cover are cyanobacterial mats growing undisturbed as they did billions of years ago – it’s like a postcard from the past; one that can help us understand how those early ecosystems thrived on a planet with an atmosphere nearly devoid of oxygen.
Microbial mats on the bottom of Lake Untersee under a perennial ice cover. — Dale Andersen
Yet these cyanobacteria unlocked new secrets for life—they learned to harness sunlight, splitting water to release electrons and hydrogen, which they combined with carbon dioxide from the air to weave complex organic molecules. The oxygen, a mere metabolic leftover, drifted into the environment, unnoticed at first. In releasing oxygen, they ignited a quiet revolution that, over eons, transformed our planet into a world capable of sustaining complex, multicellular life.
Lake Untersee is a difficult place to live and work. But we are seeking new knowledge. Knowledge that will inform us about Earth’s past history and help us understand its future. Our research also helps guide the search for evidence of life on other distant worlds such as Mars or the outer moons of Jupiter or Saturn … or beyond.
Our experience here is also illustrative of how astronauts will work at NASA’s new Moon Base – and then eventually, on Mars.
You can see all of the Status Report and related articles here at Dale Andersen’s Field Reports
Astrobiology, Exploration,
