Karen's Daily Blog

I fell asleep last night in my berth like a baby on a very bumpy car ride, accompanied by the light tick-tock of the latched drawers in the dresser keeping time with the rolling of the ship and the occasional violent, shocking thump of the hull against the waves. Just after the A-frame operator, ship crew, swimmers, and Alvin group had pulled the sub out of a tumbling sea, the crew secured everything that was outside on the deck, and we were away, under neither fair skies or following seas. Today we are headed to Guaymas Basin.

Last night I finished my writing and pictures for the day with an occasional crashing trip (that’s for sure) down a hall or up a staircase to get answers to questions or check a fact. Although I’ve gotten pretty skilled at climbing Atlantis’s steel staircases with a cup of tea in my hand, I didn’t attempt it last night. In the main lab, a ping-pong game became a much more athletic challenge than usual, though it was fun to watch. Nearby, another spectator event caught my attention. Dr. Craig Cary was getting ready to dissect a tubeworm, watched by a group of biologists curious to understand how this extreme dweller gets by on a day-to-day basis -- that is, when scientists don’t arrive in submarines to bring it up from the depths.

You can’t help feeling a bit guilty when you dissect something. And I know that the mere topic of dissection will send some students right out of the room -- or at least to a different page on this site. But stick with me a minute (I’ll spare you the blood and guts), because I understand dissection on a whole different level today than I ever did before. Learning how this animal works -- what’s inside it and what the function of each part is -- becomes vital when you’re trying to understand such an unexplored and extreme environment as the hydrothermal vents of 9º North.

Yes, we’re now underway to Guaymas Basin, and I’m going to have a lot more to say about that in the days to come.  But for the moment there’s a different extreme destination to talk about -- the exciting science research site we’re connecting with tomorrow.

9º North and Guaymas are 1,110 nautical miles apart, which should take four days if we maintain a speed of 11.5 knots. We’re going northwest, and if we keep going at this rate, we might just be on the latitude of Manzanillo (our starting port)  tomorrow afternoon.   But the new Extreme location will be on the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean, and far, far south of the equator.

That’s because Craig Cary on Atlantis will be on the phone with Extreme 2004 scientist Ian McDonald in Antarctica. McDonald, along with Extreme 2004’s Charles Lee and other scientists, is studying extremophiles in Miers Valley, Antarctica, on a mission flown out by helicopter from Scott Base -- the Kiwi base operated by the New Zealand government -- which is found at 77º 38’S, 166º 24’E. Dr. Cary has worked in the Miers Valley and in several other locations in Antarctica, studying extremophiles.

The Phone Call between the Extremes will be broadcast live on Ira Flatow’s Science Friday radio show on National Public Radio between 3 and 4 p.m. Eastern time.  Check the site for where to listen live, or to download the podcast (http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200811215).

How can there possibly be anything in a frozen polar valley that has anything to do with organisms at the boiling hot hydrothermal vents?  There is. Each of them has a community of microbes that thrives in conditions that might seem hostile to life. Just as Extreme 2008 scientists are doing here on Atlantis, the Antarctic Extreme scientists are using genetics to assess this microbial community.

Today's Extreme Blogger:
Lee Stanish

My Journey to Atlantis

Life works in strange ways sometimes. I first met Craig, the chief scientist of Extreme 2008, on a cold, overcast day in Taylor Valley of Antarctica. A trickle flowed from Andersen Stream, one of the many streams monitored by the Long-term Ecological Research group that studies the unique ecosystems within the valley. I was helping the stream team finish their daily monitoring duties, collecting water samples and attempting to measure the amount of water flowing from the glaciers to the lakes via the streams. Craig was nearby, but he wasn’t interested in the stream. He visited the Dry Valleys for very different reasons: he wanted to look at the guts of dead animals. I kid you not! You see, Taylor Valley is a harsh place to live, extreme in ways very different from hydrothermal vents. It is extremely dry, which is why Taylor Valley is part of the Dry Valleys region. On top of that, it is also very cold, with mean annual temperatures below freezing.

Lee in Antarctic.

The key to life in the Dry Valleys is the precious water locked within the glaciers as ice or in the perennially frozen lakes. During the summers, the sun can warm and melt glacier surfaces, which drain into the lakes or the dry, rocky stream beds. Animal life as we know it does not exist: there simply is not enough energy for long enough time periods to sustain large animals such as seals and penguins. These creatures occasionally make the fateful mistake of straying from the sea ice and wandering into the Dry Valleys. Manifestations of these poor creatures are evident throughout the Dry Valleys in the form of mummified corpses that are strewn about the landscape, picked apart over the years by scavenging skua birds, but otherwise intact. Microbial activity is very slow in the cold and desert environment, which slows the decay process to a sloth’s pace. Mummified seals decay so slowly that specimens can be found that died tens to hundreds of years ago!

The reason that Craig is interested in their guts is because these dead animals are an important nutrient source in the Dry Valleys. Organic matter is so low in these systems that even the infrequent dead animal can infuse the system with lots of energy and actually influence the sensitive ecosystem. The seals become, in essence, their own mini-ecosystems. Craig examines the microbial communities that reside on the decaying organisms in order to understand how the energy brought into the system via the seals are transferred into Dry Valley ecosystems.

How does this random event lead me to hydrothermal vents in the Pacific? I believe that in many ways working in Antarctica is similar to working in hydrothermal vents. For one, they are both considered extreme by human standards. I love the mystery involved in studying life in extreme environments. Every day brings new adventures and chances for discovery. Working in extreme environments requires that we set aside our own human biases and experience the world with a different set of rules, guided by the limits of biochemistry: any chemical reaction that creates energy can be used to generate life. The longer I work in these environments, the more I appreciate the seemingly endless diversity of life on Earth. 

Seal carcus in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica.

Once again, I digress. As many people would be, I was intrigued with Craig’s work, and when he mentioned his work in hydrothermal vent systems, I quickly offered my services should he have an empty berth at sea. In July, Craig sent me an e-mail offering me a space on the Extreme 2008 cruise to analyze the chemistry of water samples. It was a difficult decision for me to make, since I had spent so much time away from home and had a lot of my own work to finish. But one does not give up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity easily, and in the end, I agreed to come. Now that I am here, I can’t imagine the regret I would feel had I said no. I never would have imagined that work in the Dry Valleys would lead me to working with a team studying hydrothermal vent microbes in the Pacific Ocean, but hey, sometimes life works in strange ways.

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