Astrobiologist Dale Andersen Antarctic Status Report 6 December 2017: Traverse to Novolazarevskaya Station “Dale Andersen sent this via inReach on December 6, 2017 2:47:47 AM EST “Heading back to Novo in an hour nice sunny day. I’m starting my traverse, follow along at my MapShare https://share.garmin.com/DaleAndersen ” Dale sent this message from: Lat -71.332995 Lon 13.45293.” Keith’s 10:48 am EST update: Dale and his traverse team have arrived at Novolazarevskaya […]

Astrobiologist Dale Andersen Status Report 26 November 2012, Lake Untersee, Antarctica “With the small 25 cm diameter sampling hole opened in the south basin of Lake Untersee, Valery, Vladimir and Michael collected 30 liters of water that is now being filtered in the lab tent. Filtering is a fairly slow process but we have several nice vacuum pumps and manifolds so at least we will be efficient. Nevertheless, Valery and […]

Astrobiologist Dale Andersen’s Field Reports: Lake Untersee, Antarctica (Gigapixel panorama) “Those early ecosystems resulted in the formation of luxuriant microbial mats with a variety of morphologies which are seen today in the stromatolitic fossil record scattered around the globe. Until recently, there have been no reports of modern microorganisms forming such structures, but in 2008 our research team discovered large conical stromatolites forming beneath the thick perennial ice of Lake […]

Diving Through A Microbial Landscape in Lake Untersee, Antarctica “There’s not much in the ice-covered lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys to interest anglers looking to land the big one. But for scientists who want to know more about some of Earth’s earliest organisms — and, by extension, to recognize what life may look like on other planets — those unique ecosystems represent a useful portal to the past. Dale […]