The objective of this year's
research is to continue implementation of a long term
environmental
monitoring program for McMurdo Station, the largest US Antarctic Base.
Our program will collect environmental samples from 9 sites in McMurdo
Sound adjacent to the station. We will also collect approximately 150
terrestrial samples around the station. This sampling is based on a three-year pilot project
that was conducted at McMurdo beginning in 1999.
This research is a joint project between the Geochemical and
Environmental Research Group (GERG) and the Department of Geography at
Texas A&M University and the Marine Sciences Institute of the
University of Texas-Austin. More information on this joint
research and the project's first three years of fieldwork is available
from Texas A&M's Antarctica
website.
If you are interested in what the station looks like here an Apple QuickTimeVR panaramic view of the station. To view the panoramic, you will need to have Apple's Quicktime Player installed on your computer.
The
figure below summerizes Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH) patterns on
land and variations in the Benthic Index of Biotic Integrity (B-IBI) in
McMurdo Sound.
This field season we will reoccupy 9 sites along 3 transects that we sampled during the 2003 and 2004 field seasons. We will be sampling the marine benthic communities along two transects in areas at McMurdo -- Winter Quarter's Bay and new the outfall of the waste disposal system. We also have a control transect located off of Cape Armitage.
On each of the three transects there are three holes at differing
depths. This is required as even in the absence of human disturbance
the community structure of the ocean floor varies considerably with
depth at McMurdo. The shallowest sites are located at depths of 40-50
feet, the intermediate holes at depths of 80-90 feet and the deepest
holes at 115-130 feet. The maximum depth we can work at is constrained
by the depth to which divers can safely work.
On November 24th, all the sites
were located and large diameter holes were drilled to enable divers to
collect the appropriate samples. Diving began on November 25th with
very successful sampling completed at Sites D-1 and D-2. These two
sites are the shallow and intermediated depths on the sewage outfall
transect.
| I-8600 Vehicle Parking in Cargo Yards |
I-7157 Derelict Junction Parking Lot |
| I-8418 Refueling Station |
I-6143 Sea Ice Vehicle Line |
| I-8358 Refueling Station |
I-5579 Helicopter Pad |
| I-8182 Heavy Shop |
I-5360 Helicopter Pad |
