 |
 Image courtesy of Rob Robbins / National Science Foundation |
Solving Polar Fossil Mysteries
The seafloor below Antarctic sea ice is covered with living things like molluscs and echinoderms. However, core samples from the layers of sediments below the surface contain very few fossils. Were there few animals living on the Antarctic sea floor in the geologic past? Or is it just difficult for fossils to form in polar environments so there isn't a record of them? From October until December 2008 a research team explored below the sea ice to get to the bottom of this mystery. Dr. Sally E. Walker sent in virtual postcards to Windows to the Universe describing her experience with this research. |
Postcards
Ending the Field Season: Mapping the Distribution of Fossil Scallops from Sally Walker, December 3, 2008
Herbertson Glacier and Bay of Sails Research Sites from Sally Walker, November 10, 2008
The Research Team and Artist Gather at New Harbor and Research Begins! from Sally Walker, November 1, 2008
Creatures from Explorers Cove from Sally Walker, October 30, 2008
Meet Our Ice Divers from Sally Walker, October 25, 2008
Preparing for Research at the Field Camp from Sally Walker, October 19, 2008
McMurdo Station, Ross Island, Antarctica from Sally Walker, October 12, 2008
Arrival on Ross Island, Antarctica from Sally Walker, October 10, 2008
Flight over Southern Ocean from Sally Walker, October 10, 2008
Boarding U.S. Airforce C-17 Globemaster III from Sally Walker, October 10, 2008
Clothing Distribution Center, United States Antarctic Program from Sally Walker, October 8, 2008
Christchurch, New Zealand from Sally Walker, October 7, 2008
Shop Windows to the Universe Science Store!
Our
online store includes
books on science education, ranging from
evolution,
classroom research, and the
need for science and math literacy!
You might also be interested in:
This very special issue of The Earth Scientist (our biggest ever!) is sponsored by the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Ocean Research at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and is focused on the world’s oceans.
...more
Sea ice is frozen seawater. It can be several meters thick and it moves over time. Although the salts in the seawater do not freeze, pockets of concentrated salty water become trapped in the sea ice when
...more
Fossils are evidence of ancient life preserved within sedimentary rocks. They are clues to what living things, ecosystems, and environments were like since life has existed on this planet. The oldest
...more
What Will You Find There? South of the Antarctic Circle (at 66.5°S latitude) you will find the continent of Antarctica surrounded by the Southern Ocean, the geographic South Pole and the magnetic South
...more
After spending almost three months in nature’s most silent and frozen landscape, nothing was more startling that the sound of gurgling water. At first I did not recognize the sound, so used to the Antarctic
...more
Herbertson Glacier is my favorite place we have visited here. Up until the trip to Herbertson, I kept myself busy in the lab, weighing and measuring carbonate minerals for my experiments, so I did not
...more
At last, the entire research team is at New Harbor, and everyone is busy constructing sediment samplers, testing sediment corers and retooling them, and making experiments to be put on the sea floor before
...more
I cannot believe the astounding beauty and unusual diversity of underwater creatures in Antarctica. Some of the incredible sea animals that Shawn Harper photographed are shown in the postcard. Giant
...more
