• Take a look at the landscape under Antarctica's ice

    NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

    Antartica's underlying topography is revealed in a new map. (Vertical scale has been magnified by a factor of 17.)

    By Becky Oski
    LiveScience

    The hidden face of Antarctica, concealed for more than 30 million years beneath thick ice, is revealed in a new map and video of the continent's rocky surface, released Tuesday by NASA.

    The project, called BedMap2, is part of an international collaboration led by the British Antarctic Survey to calculate the total extent of ice in Antarctica — an essential step in predicting potential future sea level rise. To do so, researchers needed to know the details of the continent's underlying topography, from broad valleys to buried mountain ranges.

    "In order to accurately simulate the dynamic response of ice sheets to changing environmentalconditions, such as temperature and snow accumulation, we need to know the shape and structure of the bedrock below the ice sheets in great detail," Michael Studinger, IceBridge project scientist, said in a statement. NASA's IceBridge airborne mapping missions over Antarctica contributed about 12 percent of the ice-thickness data points necessary for the map, according to NASA.

    Some stunning features revealed during the decade-long survey include the discovery of the deepest point on any continent, the valley under Byrd Glacier, which reaches 9,120 feet (2,780 meters) below sea level. The world also got its first detailed pictures of the Gamburtsev Mountains, a jagged range the size of New York that lies entombed under more than a mile (1.6 kilometers) of ice. [Video: Antarctic Bedrock Revealed - Best Look Yet At Land Under The Ice]

    The new map is based on surface elevation, ice thickness and bedrock topography from land, air and satellite surveys. Scientists combined different ways to peer through the ice, such as radar, sound waves and electromagnetic instruments. Some regions still lack detail, but the new topography is a big improvement over the original BedMap, researchers said.

    "Before, we had a regional overview of the topography. But this new map, with its much higher resolution, shows the landscape itself, a complex landscape of mountains, hills and rolling plains, dissected by valleys, troughs and deep gorges," Peter Fretwell, a scientist with the British Antarctic Survey and lead study author, said in a statement.

    The BedMap2 results were published Feb. 28 in the journal The Cryosphere. The data is freely available to researchers interested in studying and modeling glaciers and climate change, sea level rise and Antarctic topography.

    Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook and Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

    Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Earthquakes trigger Antarctic 'icequakes'

    Doug Wiens

    Researchers hard at work around a seismograph, an instrument in the orange box buried in a hole in the snow. Solar power runs the seismic station during the summer, and batteries keep it going during the long, dark winter months.

    By Becky Oskin
    LiveScience

    SALT LAKE CITY — When the world shakes, so does Antarctica's ice, according to a study presented here Friday at the Seismological Society of America's annual meeting.

    Icequakes are vibrations in glaciers and ice sheets (the massive expanses of glacial ice that cover Antarctica and Greenland). From small creaks and groans to sudden slips equal to a magnitude-7 earthquake, the shaking signals movement in the ice.

    Scientists discovered that big earthquakes, including Japan's 2011 Tohoku quake and Chile's 2010 Maule temblor, set off icequakes across Antarctica, just as they triggered earthquakes on land.

    "We see pretty clear evidence of triggering (in Antarctica)," said Jake Walter, a geophysicist at Georgia Tech.

    The icequakes started after a type of rolling earthquake wave called surface waves (also known as Rayleigh waves) raced through the frozen ice, Walter said. After the two recent major temblors, earthquake monitors picked up a spike in icequakes, which typically hit throughout the day as the ice shifts.

    Walter suspects the shaking could shift crevasses or adjust the ice above subglacial rivers, both known icequake triggers.

    The research team is also taking a closer look at the effects of earthquakes on the Whillans Ice Stream, a fast-moving ice river that flows to the Ross Sea. Whillans — where, this year, researchers recovered the first signs of life from a buried subglacial lake — surges toward the sea two times a day in stick-slip motion, much in the way earthquake faults move. Early results suggest that earthquakes elsewhere on the planet can trigger these sudden slips, Walter said.

    Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook and Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

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  • Huge iceberg's remnants adrift 13 years later

    NASA

    The B-15T iceberg, spotted here off the Mawson Coast in East Antarctica, is a remnant of the world's largest recorded iceberg.

    By Becky Oskin
    LiveScience

    Swept halfway around Antarctica by ocean currents, a remnant of the world's largest recorded iceberg still drifts at sea, a new satellite image reveals.

    Spotted near the Mawson Coast in East Antarctica on March 16 by NASA's Aqua satellite, the B-15T iceberg was once part of the 4,250-square-mile (11,000 square kilometers) B-15 iceberg. NASA's satellite snapped a shot of the 13-year-old iceberg floating near the Amery Ice Shelf, far from its birthing ground, the Antarctic Sun reported.

    The enormous B-15 berg peeled away from Antarctica' Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000, quickly shattering into a number of smaller ice chunks. But in this case, small is relative, as fragment B-15A was 2,470 square miles (6,400 square km) and clogged McMurdo Sound. The extreme pack ice in McMurdo Sound killed some emperor penguins and forced others to move to less-than-ideal breeding grounds, researchers found.

    It's not unusual for icebergs to survive for up to 25 years if they stay in Antarctica's chilly coastal waters, but the ice will quickly melt if they travel north. Scientists spotted another 'berg fragment, B-15J, disintegrating about 1,700 miles (2,700 km) southeast of New Zealand in December 2011.

    Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook or Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

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  • US pushes for Antarctic marine protections

    John B. Weller

    Adelie penguins rest and swim in Antarctica's Ross Sea, which is teeming with all sorts of wildlife.

    By Andrea Thompson
    LiveScience

    U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called for the establishment of increased protections in two parts of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica at an event held Monday night by The Pew Charitable Trusts at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C.

    Kerry appeared with New Zealand's ambassador to the United States, Michael Moore, to make the case for the two countries' push for a marine protected area (or MPA) in Antarctica's Ross Sea. If created, it would be the largest MPA in the world.

    "The Ross Sea … is a natural laboratory. And we disrespect it at our peril, as we do the rest of the ocean," Kerry said in his remarks at the event, which also screened the award-winning documentary "The Last Ocean," which highlights the Ross Sea.

    The Ross Sea is teaming with life, as the home to more than 1 million pairs of Adélie penguins; 28,850 pairs of emperor penguins; 30,000 to 50,000 Weddell seals; 5.5 million Antarctic petrels and 21,000 minke whales, according to Pew. And like many parts of the Antarctic ocean environment, the Ross Sea has been left relatively unscathed by human activities, with fewer pollutants and invasive species and less large-scale fishing than in other parts of the Earth's oceans.

    But global warming and increasing interest in the rich fisheries found in the Southern Ocean are putting pressure on this environment, those calling for the MPA have warned. [8 of the World's Most Endangered Places]

    "The Ross Sea is one of the most pristine places left on Earth," said Joshua Reichert, executive vice president of The Pew Charitable Trusts, in a statement. "It now faces challenges, brought on in great part by the warming of the Earth's climate, that threaten to alter the fragile web of life that has endured for millennia."

    At a July meeting, 24 countries and the European Union will decide whether to create the Ross Sea MPA and another MPA in East Antarctica, which was proposed by the European Union, France and Australia. The proposals will be submitted to the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, an independent international body established in 1982 that reaches decisions on marine protections by consensus.

    "When it comes to the Ross Sea and Antarctica, we're not going to wait for a crisis before we take action. I think we're making a smart choice now," Kerry said."We're proud to join with New Zealand and Australia, two countries that have an extraordinary understanding of the sea and commitment to protecting it, and who have been great stewards."

    An effort last October to convince the commission to accept the MPA proposals failed because consensus couldn't be reached. The group will meet again from July 15-17 in Bremerhaven, Germany, to reconsider the proposals.

    Follow Andrea Thompson @AndreaTOAP, Pinterest or Google+.  Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook or Google+. Original article at LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

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  • Antarctic's first-ever whale skeleton found

    Natural Environment Research Council

    This image shows the backbone of the Minke whale found on the seafloor near Antarctica.

    By Megan Gannon, LiveScience

    For the first time ever, scientists say they have discovered a whale skeleton on the ocean floor near Antarctica. Resting nearly a mile below the surface, the boneyard is teeming with strange life, including at least nine new species of tiny of deep-sea creatures, according to a new study.

    Though whales naturally sink to the ocean floor when they die, it's extremely rare for scientists to come across these final resting places, known as "whale falls." Discovering one typically requires a remote-controlled undersea vehicle and some luck.

    "At the moment, the only way to find a whale fall is to navigate right over one with an underwater vehicle," study researcher Jon Copley, of the University of Southampton in England, said in a statement. The team's chance encounter with a 35-foot-long (10.7 meter) spread of bones that belonged to a southern Minke whale came as they were exploring an undersea crater near the South Sandwich Islands.

    "We were just finishing a dive with the U.K.'s remotely operated vehicle, Isis, when we glimpsed a row of pale-coloured blocks in the distance, which turned out to be whale vertebrae on the seabed," Copley explained.

    When whales die and sink to the ocean floor, their carcasses provide nutritional boosts and habitats for deep-sea life. Though their flesh decomposes within weeks, whale bones can last anywhere from 60 to 100 years, supporting bacteria and strange creatures like zombie worms, which are mouthless, eyeless animals that feed off the skeletons.

    "The planet's largest animals are also a part of the ecology of the very deep ocean, providing a rich habitat of food and shelter for deep sea animals for many years after their death," said Diva Amon, another University of Southampton researcher. "Examining the remains of this southern Minke whale gives insight into how nutrients are recycled in the ocean, which may be a globally important process in our oceans."

    The Antarctic whale fall, thought to have been on the seafloor for several decades, was surveyed using high-definition cameras, and samples were collected to be studied back on land. The team encountered several new species of sea snails and worms that were living off the bones. They found a new species of isopod crustacean, similar to woodlice, crawling over the skeleton, according to a statement from the U.K. National Oceanography Centre. The researchers also found an undescribed species of zombie worms (Osedax), which could help scientists study how the mysterious species has managed to become surprisingly diverse and widespread. (They've been found in whale falls in the eastern and western Pacific as well as the North Atlantic.)

    "One of the great remaining mysteries of deep ocean biology is how these tiny invertebrates can spread between the isolated habitats these whale carcasses provide on the seafloor," Adrian Glover, a researcher at the Natural History Museum in London, said in a statement.

    A recent study suggested that the sex strategy of zombie worms is the key to their success. Females of the species Osedax japonica quickly mature and then constantly produce eggs that harems of dwarf males fertilize, scientists found. What's more, zombie worm larvae can swim actively for at least 10 days before settling on bones on the ocean floor, according to the new research, detailed last month in the journal Naturwissenschaften.

    The study of the whale fall was recently published online in the journal Deep-Sea Research II: Topical Studies in Oceanography.

    Email Megan Gannon or follow her @meganigannon. Follow OurAmazingPlanet @OAPlanet, Facebook and Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

    Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Russians now say new Antarctica bacteria actually contamination

    Josh Landis, National Science Foundation

    Russia's Vostok Station, in a photograph taken during the 2000 to 2001 field season.

    By Elizabeth Howell
    LiveScience

    Late last week, a Russian news outlet reported that scientists at Antarctica's Lake Vostok, buried under miles of ice, said they had found bacteria that appeared to be new to science. Now, the head of that lab has said the signature is actually just contamination, leading outside researchers to say that the Russian team rushed too quickly to announce the possibility of new bacterial life.

    Russian news media reported last week that the team had found DNA from a microbe that did not appear in databases and is only 86 percent similar to others on Earth — considered a reliable threshold of new life.

    On Monday, the lab analyzing the finding said it was not new bacteria that generated the signal, but contamination.

    "We found certain specimens, although not many. All of them were contaminants," laboratory head Vladimir Korolyov said in a quote attributed in media reports to the Interfax news agency.

    The quick backtrack illustrates the danger of bypassing peer review when announcing new results, Peter Doran, an Arctic and Antarctic researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told OurAmazingPlanet.

    'You can say anything you want in a press release'
    Peer review is the scientific process that all findings must undergo before work is published, generally in the form of a paper in a scientific journal. The research comes under the scrutiny of other scientists in the field and is validated and questioned before anything goes to print. That's not the case in a news report.

    For that reason, the scientists who OurAmazingPlanet spoke with said that it was hard for them to discuss why the Russians failed since they do not even know, for example, what contaminates were found in the lab. That information could take weeks or months to surface.

    "You can say anything you want in a press release," Doran said. "The peer review literature (by contrast) is very controlled. It needs to be substantiated, and written in clear language."

    "I tell my students," he continued, "don't trust anything you read in the popular press. Even if there is a paper, there's often a disconnect between what is in the paper and in the popular press."

    Peer review, however, can take years, acknowledged David Pearce, a researcher with the British Antarctic Survey who worked on a similar British effort to drill into buried Lake Ellsworth. (That effort failed and is being subject to a review board. The results should be published around May, at which point the British will decide whether to try again.) [Extreme Antarctica: Amazing Photos of Lake Ellsworth]

    Taxpayers are often impatient to find out what is going on, Pearce said, and the press works to fill that need. A balance must be struck between these needs, he added.

    "It's important (the public) is kept informed of what's going on, and the interesting things that are coming out," Pearce said. Science, by contrast, requires time and careful thought.

    "You do want to find out what's happened to the research money," he added, "but you don't want to say too much too soon."

    Sterilization part of best practice
    The Russian researchers not only faced challenges concerning announcing their findings, but also scientific challenges in their quest to discover life.

    It's still not known what kind of life, if any, lies below the 2 miles (3 kilometers) of ice that sits on top of Lake Vostok. As far as researchers know, the underground freshwater has been lying there untouched for more than a million years.

    Confirming that any possible signature of life is not a contaminant is complicated, to say the least.

    There's a strict protocol the Americans strive to follow in Antarctica, said Doran, who is familiar with the practices of the U.S. Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling project (WISSARD) team that worked this year at Antarctica's Lake Whillans.

    Doran could not speak specifically to the Russians, but said the American work demonstrates a good methodology.

    In WISSARD's case, it involves sterilizing all the equipment with hydrogen peroxide gel or a similar product, then hermetically sealing it in bags for shipment. Scientists on-site sterilize the water in the drill system through several steps that include filters and life-killing ultraviolet radiation.

    As the drill progresses through the ice, the scientists monitor cell counts to make sure there are no unexplained jumps.

    WISSARD recently announced life findings of its own, but Doran was equally skeptical of that until a paper comes out confirming the work. [Gallery: Finding Life in a Buried Antarctic Lake]

    To the WISSARD announcement, Doran said, "I understand how it happened. There are embedded reporters in the field with them. They are sitting around the dinner table together, and drinking Scotch together, and the reporters are right there (when scientists say) 'Our cell counts are way up when we've gone into the lake water.'"

    "Of course that gets reported, but without the peer review literature, it's still a violation of how the standard things are done," Doran said.

    Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace. Follow OurAmazingPlanet @OAPlanet, Facebook and Google+.

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  • What Antarctica looked like before the ice

    Stuart N. Thomson / UA Department of Geosciences

    This 3-D reconstruction of the topography hidden under Antarctica's two-mile-thick coating of ice was made using data from radar surveys. The continent was relatively flat before glaciers started carving deep valleys 34 million years ago, a new study finds.

    By Becky Oskin
    LiveScience

    Like Alaska's mighty Yukon, a broad river once flowed across Antarctica, following a gentle valley shaped by tectonic forces at a time before the continent became encased in ice. Understanding what happened when rivers of ice later filled the valley could solve certain climate and geologic puzzles about the southernmost continent.

    The valley is Lambert Graben in East Antarctica, now home to the world's largest glacier. Trapped beneath the ice, the graben (which is German for ditch or trench) is a stunning, deep gorge. But before Antarctica's deep freeze 34 million years ago, the valley was relatively flat and filled by a lazy river, leaving a riddle for geologists to decode: How did Lambert Graben get so steep, and when was it carved?

    The key to Lambert Graben's history was found in layers of sediments just offshore, in Prydz Bay. In a new study, Stuart Thomson, a geologist at the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson, looked into the past by decoding sands deposited by the river, and the messy piles left behind by the glacier. The river sands are topped with a thick layer of coarser sediment that signals the onset of glacial erosion in the valley, the researchers found. The erosion rate more than doubled when the glaciers moved in, Thomson said.

    "The only way that could happen is from glaciers," he said. "They started grinding and forming deep valleys."

    WHOI

    Antarctica and the Gondwana supercontinent, 150 million years ago.

    Understanding when glaciers first wove their way across Antarctica will help scientists better model the ice sheet's response to Earth's climate shifts, the researchers said.

    "There's a big effort to model how glaciers flow in Antarctica, and these models need a landscape over which glaciers can flow," Thomson told OurAmazingPlanet. "Once these models can predict past changes, they can more accurately predict what will happen with future climate changes."

    The sediments also hold clues to the tectonic evolution of East Antarctica, and a mountain range buried beneath the vast, thick ice sheet. [Album: Stunning Photos of Antarctic Ice]

    The findings are detailed in the March 2013 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience.

    History of the ice
    Lambert Graben formed during the breakup of Gondwana, an ancient supercontinent, a process that happened in stages. Antarctica, India and Africa tore apart in the Late Cretaceous (about 80 million years ago). The split created long, linear valleys oriented perpendicular to the continental coastlines. At the time, Earth's climate was warmer than it is today, and as Antarctica moved southward, settling into its home over the South Pole, the continent teemed with plants and animals.

    Scientists can partially reconstruct this past environment with fossils and through radar that peers beneath the ice to map the shapes of the rock below. A 3-D map of Antarctica today shows chasms carved by glaciers, rugged mountains and other remnants of its warmer existence.

    But the surveys tell nothing about how the landscape looked before the ice carved out all those features. "People have speculated when the big fjords formed under the ice," Thomson said. "But no one knows for sure until you sample the rocks or the sediments."

    Thomson and his colleagues analyzed sediments drilled from the ocean floor just offshore of Lambert Glacier, as well as from onshore moraines, the rock piles pushed up by glaciers. Tests on minerals in the sands and muds helped them figure out when and how fast the surface eroded.

    Here's what the sediments say: From about 250 million to 34 million years ago, the region around Lambert Glacier was relatively flat, and drained by slow-moving rivers, Thomson said. About 34 million years ago, which coincides with a cooling of Earth's climate, big glaciers appeared, shaping the spectacular valley now hidden under thick ice.

    "It seemed like it occurred very early on, 34 (million) to 24 million years ago," Thomson said. Erosion slowed dramatically as the ice sheet stabilized about 15 million years ago, he said.

    Some 5,250 to 8,200 feet (1.6 to 2.5 kilometers) of rock have since disappeared, ground down by glaciers and carried away by the ice, according to the study.

    "Glaciers can carve deep valleys quickly — and did so on Antarctica before it got so cold that the most of it got covered by 1 or 2 miles (1.6 to 3.2 km) of thick, stationary ice," Peter Reiners, a UA geologist and study co-author, said in a statement.

    Clues to buried mountain range
    Lambert Graben extends about 375 miles (600 km) inland, ending at one of Antarctica's most enigmatic features — an entombed mountain range called the Gamburtsev Mountains. Buried under the ice, the mountains rose during Gondwana's rifting. Geologic evidence suggests two pulses of uplift from rifting events about 250 million years ago and 100 million years ago pushed up the jagged peaks.

    But Thomson and his colleagues did not find evidence in the sediments for a second uplift phase 100 million years ago. The river sands contain minerals from the Gamburtsev Mountains, and the tiny grains suggest the mountains got their height with one tectonic push.

    "This underscores both the mountain range's remarkable age and the extraordinary degree of subglacial landscape preservation," writes Darrel Swift in an accompanying article in Nature Geoscience. Swift, a geologist at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, was not involved in the study.

    Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook or Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

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  • Rock on! Rare 40-pound meteorite found in Antarctica

    International Polar Foundation

    The fifth-largest meteorite ever found in East Antarctica was discovered Jan. 28 by an international team of meteorite hunters. "This is the biggest meteorite (40 pounds) found in East Antarctica for 25 years," one geologist said.

    By Becky Oskin
    LiveScience

    Meteorite hunters at the bottom of the world bagged a rare find this southern summer: a 40-pound (18 kilogram) chunk of extraterrestrial rock.

    A team from Belgium and Japan discovered the hefty meteorite as the members drove across the East Antarctic plateau on snowmobiles. Initial tests show it is an ordinary chondrite, the most common type of meteorite found on Earth, Vinciane Debaille, a geologist from Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, said in a statement.

    "This is the biggest meteorite found in East Antarctica for 25 years," Debaille said. "This is something very exceptional. When you find such a meteorite on Earth, it means that when it was in the sky, it was much larger." [Images of the Antarctic meteorite.]

    The Russian meteor that burst into fragments above the Chelyabinsk region on Feb. 15 is also an ordinary chondrite, according to initial tests by Russian scientists.

    International Polar Foundation

    More than 38,000 meteorites have been found in Antarctica, but only 30 bigger than 40 pounds (18 kg). This big meteorite found in Antarctica is an ordinary chondrite.

    Every year, scientists travel to Antarctica to search for meteorites. Their charred black crust stands out starkly in the white snow, and the cold, dry climate helps preserve any organic chemicals inside the rocks.

    The expedition collected 425 meteorites in 40 days, with a total weight of 165 pounds (75 kg). Debaille said they may have found one Mars meteorite and one piece of the asteroid Vesta among the many discoveries.

    The researchers canvassed the Nansen Ice Field, 86 miles (140 kilometers) south out of the International Polar Foundation's Princess Elisabeth station. The United States also sent scientists out on the polar ice to collect meteorites this season, from McMurdo Station on the opposite end of the continent.

    Reach Becky Oskin at boskin@techmedianetwork.com. Follow her on Twitter @beckyoskin. Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter @OAPlanet. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

    Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Antarctica's bizarre creatures come to life online

    Julian Gutt, Alfred Wegener Institute

    An icefish caught on camera on the Antarctic seafloor. The fish have a natural antifreeze chemical in their blood and body fluids that allow them to survive in frigid temperatures.

    By Megan Gannon
    LiveScience

    The strange creatures that thrive on the bottom of the chilly ocean surrounding Antarctica have been revealed in a comprehensive collection of snapshots and datasets now available online.

    The database, published as part of a paper in the journal Nature Conservation, covers the frozen continent's macrobenthic organisms, creatures that live on the seafloor and are big enough to be seen by the naked eye.

    This community includes spiny echinoderms, sponges, crustaceans as well as some bottom-dwelling fish that are uniquely adapted to the region's ice-laden waters — for instance, icefish (Notothenioidei), which have a natural antifreeze chemical in their blood and body fluids that allow them to survive in frigid temperatures.

    Though the underwater picture collection goes back only to the mid-1980s, the entire database draws on information collected using dredges and trawls, in addition to towed and remote-controlled cameras, from about 90 different expeditions in the region since 1956. The database is also geo-referenced, meaning each bit of data is linked to the precise location where it was collected by researchers studying the Antarctic seafloor. [See Images of the Antarctic Creatures]

    "The most important achievement of this paper is that data collected over many years and by various institutions are now not only freely available for anyone to download and use, but also properly described to facilitate future work in reusing the data," said the paper's lead author, Julian Gutt of the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research in Germany.

    Julian Gutt, Alfred Wegener Institute

    This photograph was taken at the bottom of the Weddell Sea during an expedition in 1988.

    The vast majority of information in the data collection comes from Antarctica's seafloor shelf, at depths shallower than about 2,600 feet (800 meters).

    The researchers say and the database aims to aid scientists studying the biodiversity of the pristine region. The authors also note that only a few marine habitats are currently protected in Antarctica, and they say their data collection could inform proposals for bigger Marine Protected Areas in, for example, the Ross Sea, a region that straddles the dividing line between East and West Antarctica.

    Last year, the United States submitted a proposal to create a protected area in the Ross Seaspanning 700,000 square-miles (1.8 million square kilometers). If accepted by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, the proposal would put limitations on fishing in certain areas to help preserve habitats for iconic species, such as whales and emperor penguins, and maintain viable stocks of commercially valuable fish.

    The U.S. proposal, along with others from New Zealand and the United Kingdom, was not accepted during the independent commission's meeting in Hobart, Australia, in October, but the group plans to take up the issue again this summer at a special session in Germany.

    Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook  and  Google+.

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  • Shrinking ozone hole is smallest in 10 years

    BIRA / IASB

    This graphic shows the ozone hole over Antarctica in blue. The depletion in 2012 was smaller than any time in the past 10 years.

    By Stephanie Pappas
    LiveScience

    Good news from Antarctica: The hole in the ozone layer is shrinking, new measurements reveal.

    Ozone is a molecule made of three oxygen atoms. It's relatively highly concentrated in a particular layer of the stratosphere about 12 miles to 19 miles (20 to 30 kilometers) above Earth's surface. This ozone layer prevents ultraviolet light from reaching Earth's surface — a good thing, given that UV light causes sunburn and skin cancer.

    Ever since the early 1980s, though, a hole in this layer has developed over Antarctica during September to November, decreasing ozone concentration by as much as 70 percent. The cause is human-produced chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were once heavily used in aerosols and refrigeration.

    By international agreement, CFCs have been phased out of use. The policy has real effects, new satellite observations reveal. In 2012, the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica was smaller than it has ever been in the last 10 years.

    The new observations, announced by the European Space Agency (ESA) on Friday, come from Europe's Met Op weather satellite, which has an instrument specifically designed to sense ozone concentrations. The findings suggest that the phase-out of CFCs is working, the ESA reports.

    Antarctica is particularly vulnerable to ozone-depleting substances, because high winds cause a vortex of cold air to circulate over the continent. In the resulting frigid temperatures, CFCs are especially effective at depleting ozone. The result is that people in the Southern Hemisphere are at increased risk of exposure from UV radiation.

    CFCs persist in the atmosphere for a long time, so it may take until the middle of the century for ozone concentrations to rebound to 1960s levels, the ESA reports. However, the hole in the ozone over Antarctica should completely close in the next few decades.

    Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook  and  Google+.

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  • Adventurers re-enact Shackleton's Antarctic voyage

    Alex Kumar / AP

    In this Jan. 8, 2013 photo released by Shackleton Epic, expedition members and an unidentified supporter pose on the deck of their boat Alexander Shackleton during training in the Southern Ocean. A modern-day team of six led by Tim Jarvis and Barry Gray used similar equipment and clothes to re-enact a 1916 expedition of led by Ernest Shackleton to save his crew after their ship got stuck in Antarctica's icy waters.

    By Nick Perry, Associated Press

    WELLINGTON, New Zealand — It's been lauded as one of the greatest survival stories of all-time.

    Nearly 100 years later, a group of British and Australian adventurers have discovered why. They re-enacted Ernest Shackleton's journey to save his crew when their ship got stuck and sank in Antarctica's icy waters.

    Tim Jarvis and Barry "Baz" Gray reached an old whaling station on remote South Georgia island Monday, 19 days after leaving Elephant Island. Just as Shackleton did in 1916, Jarvis and his team sailed 800 nautical miles across the Southern Ocean in a small lifeboat and then climbed over crevasse-filled mountains in South Georgia.

    The modern-day team of six used similar equipment and clothes. But the harsh conditions forced several of them to abandon their attempt along the way.

    "It was epic, really epic, and we've arrived here against the odds," Jarvis told his project manager Kim McKay after reaching the station, adding that "we had more than 20 crevasse falls up to our knees and Baz fell into a crevasse up to his armpits."

    McKay said Jarvis was suffering some frostbite in his right foot after the journey. He was sleeping Monday and planned Tuesday to hike to the grave site of Shackleton, who was buried on the island years after his journey.

    Alex Kumar / AP

    Expedition leader Tim Jarvis poses on the deck of their boat Alexander Shackleton in the Southern Ocean.

    Jarvis wasn't the only one suffering foot problems. Three of the men couldn't complete the climb after suffering the ailment trench foot, caused by prolonged exposure to cold and wet conditions.

    "The boat was only 22½ feet long. At any one time, only four men could be below deck, while the other two had to be on deck. They had 8-meter (26-foot) waves crashing onto the boat," McKay said. "It was like they were playing a game of twister. If one moved, they all had to move. They were constantly wet and cold and they all arrived with varying degrees of trench foot."

    Shackleton completed the climb without a tent. Jarvis and his team were planning to do the same but were forced to use modern-day tents and sleeping bags when a blizzard hit. One member of the team turned back and then later rejoined Jarvis and Gray with more provisions and wearing modern-day clothing.

    Shackleton's survival story was remarkable in that the final two legs of his journey came after the 28 crew had endured more than a year in Antarctica. Their ship "Endurance" was trapped and then crushed by the ice pack and the men later sailed in lifeboats to Elephant Island, where 22 of them stayed, waiting for help. After reaching the whaling station, Shackleton was able to raise the alarm and save all his crew.

    While Jarvis, who lives in Australia and also has British citizenship, and his team tried to recreate many of the conditions, there were limits — they decided to eat salami rather than the penguins and seals on which Shackleton's crew subsisted.

    "These early explorers were iron men in wooden boats," Jarvis told McKay, adding that he hoped "we've been able to emulate some of what they achieved."

  • Seafloor volcanic vent discovered near Antarctica

    National Oceanography Center, Southampton

    The small relict chimney found on the seafloor near Antarctica at a depth of around 3,900 feet (1,200 meters). Emanating hydrothermal fluid is visible as shimmering water.

    By Douglas Main
    LiveScience 

    A research vessel towing an underwater camera has discovered a volcanic vent in the Southern Ocean north of Antarctica.

    This vent differs from "classic" hydrothermal vents by being colder, although higher than surrounding seawater in levels of minerals such as lithium, boron and calcium.

    Researchers leading the expedition, from England's National Oceanography Center at Southampton, also found remains of an old "chimney," formed when the water is much hotter, according to a release from the institution. This suggests the vent was once more active and likely supported a variety of strange life, including the kind found near other hydrothermal vents. This time, however, the cameras didn't find any such life at the vent, located at a depth of around 3,900 feet (1,200 meters).

    The vent was found by an underwater camera called the SHRIMP and towed by the RRS James Cook in the Bransfield Strait, a little-explored region south of the Shetland Islands and north of the Antarctic Peninsula. Its presence was revealed by a fountain of shimmering water seeping through the seafloor; it shimmers because of its high concentration of minerals and differing salt content from surrounding ocean water.

    Hydrothermal vents and underwater volcanoes have been discovered elsewhere in the Southern Ocean, and host a variety of unique life, including many previously unknown species.

    The discovery was detailed by a study published recentlyin the online journal PLOS ONE.

    Reach Douglas Main at dmain@techmedianetwork.com. Follow him on Twitter @Douglas_Main.

    Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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