November 13, 2006

ICE-BREAKER POLARSTERN TO EXPLORE UNCHARTED SEAFLOOR

Huge areas of sea floor have been freed up by the collapse 4 years ago of the Larsen B platform along the Antarctic Peninsula – leaving a blank spot on Antarctic maps. Polarstern, the research flagship of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, will shortly conduct there the first major biological research, studying living communities, from microbes to whales, including bottom fish and squids.

The Itinerary

DEPARTURE - NOVEMBER 23, 2006: CAPE TOWN
The Polarstern leaves Cape Town, South Africa, heading towards the Weddell Sea (1).

DECEMBER 4/5 TO DECEMBER 14, 2006: NEUMAYER STATION
The Polarstern stops in the Atka Bay in order to supply the German Neumayer Research Station (2).

DECEMBER 14 TO JANUARY 26, 2006: ANTARCTIC PENINSULA
The first investigations, on living resources (CCAMLR), take place on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, around the South Shetland Islands (3). The subsequent ecological work (CAML) is located around the Larsen A/B area. If the sea ice is not penetrable, an alternative area around Joinville Island will be used instead (4).

ARRIVAL – JANUARY 30, 2007: PUNTA ARENAS
The Polarstern will end its expedition in Punta Arenas, Chile on January 30, 2007 (5).

The Science

25 different research projects will be undertaken by 47 scientists, encompassing disciplines as diverse as benthology, planktonology, taxonomy, ecology, physiology, biogeochemistry, genetics, bathymetry, etc.

Fisheries Management

The first part of the expedition will focus on biological investigations on fish stocks as a contribution to the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR, www.ccamlr.org), following a dozen similar surveys since 1976. Researchers will monitor previously fished areas located in the western part of the Antarctic Peninsula to determine the state of stock recovery.

Global Warming and Ice Shelf Collapse

When Antarctic glaciers reach the coast of the continent, they begin to float and become ice shelves, from which icebergs are then calved. Since 1974, a total of 13,500 square kilometers of ice shelves have disintegrated in the Antarctic Peninsula, a phenomenon linked to the regional temperature rise of more than 2°C in these past 50 years. An increasing number of scientists worry that similar break-ups in other areas could lead to increases in ice flow and cause sea level to rise dramatically. The final collapse of the Larsen B platform in February 2002 is the latest and the biggest of these catastrophic events tentatively related to global warming, freeing an additional 3250 square kilometers of sea bottom of an ice cover that has been estimated to be there for at least 5,000 years.

Evolution of Bottom Fauna

Meanwhile, the vanishing ice allowing vegetal and animal plankton to reinvade and thrive in these areas offers a perfect opportunity to study the evolution of bottom animal communities depending on this plankton. Sampling with various trawls, grabs and traps and the use of a remote operated vehicle with a video camera will allow the description of new species within this near-pristine environment. A dozen scientific studies will look into groups as different as microbes, sponges, crustaceans, octopuses, starfish and whales, from the grounding line to the open sea areas, and will furthermore give the best benchmark of the early stages of colonization. These studies could become a reference for other parts of Antarctica where such disintegration of ice shelves is already expected on how climate-induced shifts in biodiversity will change in ecosystems structured largely by ice.

Mud Volcanoes

The expedition will also lead the first biological studies of a recently discovered cold-vent ecosystem in the same Larsen area, the first of its kind known in Antarctica. Uncovered in 2005 by an American geoscience research team, this 8-kilometer zone harbors mounds spewing out fluid and mud particles, as well as clusters of large clams. These mollusks and their associated fauna probably depend on chemical energy from the Earth, rather than one driven by photosynthesis from the sun or from hot emissions rising from inside the planet.

A Run Up to the International Polar Year (IPY)

With 47 scientists onboard from more than a dozen different nationalities, the Polarstern expedition brings together an international network of research programs that will focus on the biological characteristics of this blank spot, from November 2006 to January 2007. One of the major contributors to the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML), Polarstern's voyage will be a major event in the IPY, and open the way for further polar expeditions.

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Contact:

Darlene Crist
Census of Marine Life
401-295-1356
darlene.crist@cox.net

This text derived from:

http://www.coml.org/coml.htm

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