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Lake Ecosystems in Antarctica

Robin, One of my 5th grade science classes has been reading your journals and following your adventures online.They love the videos you are posting. Makes us feel like we're there too!It's fabulous that you are able to do that!! Below are some questions from this class: Amber: What might cause the virus (on the mat you photographed last week)? Carleigh: Were there any fish in the lake (in the dry valley)? Matthew: How did it get there? (the lake) Mercedes: How big are the(adele)penguins? Khalid: How do you keep the compressors from freezing ? And what is it like coming back up (from the dive hole)? Sean: What are penguin flippers made of? Lucas: How far down is the ice (in the lake)? Joseph: How cold is the temperature when you dive underwater? Tanner: Were you scared camping by a glacier? Noah: Where in Antarctica is the penguin colony? David: How long was a person in the water? Wyatt: Are you shivering when you come back up to the surface? Kaz: Is it dangerous to walk on the lake? Brandi: How deep do you dive? Conner:Does the glacier move? Eldon: How fast do you think the wind was(blowing)? (katabatic) We just started catching up with the robots- look for more questions soon :) Keep up the good job! cheers, Lollie

Thu, 11/20/2008 - 00:32

Robin Ellwood

Hello all you inquirers in Texas! How nice to hear from all of you!
Amber: It is unknown what causes the virus on the algal mat. In fact, the scientists are not 100% sure that the spots are a virus. Perhaps that could be a research question! It's exciting to be part of research that is searching for the answers to just your type of question!
Carleigh: There are no fish in the Dry Valley Lakes. Only microbes live in the lake - things like protists, bacteria, diatoms, etc.
Matthew: The lake formed as the Taylor Glacier receeded back into the mountains. As climate warmed, the glaciers started melting. Taylor Valley is largely void of a "main" glacier because there is not enough ice pushing off the plateau to squeeze more ice down into the valley.
Mercedes: Adelie penguins stand about 27 inches tall and weigh between 10-15 pounds on average. They are quite small, but quite entertaining!
Khalid: Great question! Not too successfully! We had to put the compressor into a heated tent several times to thaw it out! It was cold early in the season, so we had more trouble with freezing then. Once we had a warm spell hit, the compressor was much happier!
Coming back up into the dive hole is wonderful! It is such a beautiful place to be - surrounded by ice. But ice that you can see into across the lake. It has spectacular air bubbles in it which make all kinds of interesting patterns. Coming up through the dive hole is one of my favorite times! 
Sean: Penguin "flippers" are actually wings! They are made of bones and feathers like a "normal" bird - or a bird that flies. But, the bones are structured differently. Rather than having separate bones that work to help the bird fly in air, penguin wing bones are fused together so that they ahve stronger propulsion in the water! Their wind feathers are mush coarser than a flying birds wings as well - remember, penguins don't fly!
Lucas: The lake ice this season is about 12 feet thick; it's a little thinner this season than what we typically see which is closer to 15 feet. It's still pretty thick though!
Joseph: The Ocean temperature is 28 degrees F. This water is actually colder than the temperature needed to freeze water. It stays unfrozen due to the salt that is in the ocean water. The lake water is about 32-33 degrees F. It is just barely above freezing!
Tanner: I was never scared camping beside the glacier. They are so beautiful! We also have our tents far enough away so that if pieces of ice fall off - which does happen - the ice doesn't fall on us! It makes a loud noise though! It is wonderful to camp beside a glacier, you can hear it pop and groan, and make all sorts of noises at it creeps along!
Noah: There are many penguin colonies in Antarctica. They can be found all along the edge of the contintent. The Adelie colony that I visited is on Ross Island!
David: Divers stay in the water for varying amounts of time, it really depends on what needs to get done. Some dives only last 15 minutes, some last 40 minutes. I would say that the average length of our dives was about 30 minutes. The longest dive was 58 minutes! BBRRRR!
Wyatt: Whether we are shivering or not depends on how long we were in the water for and what we were doing. If we had to stay still in one spot for a while, we got colder. If we had to swim alot, we stayed warmer. There were several times that I was shivering, but typically we don't let ourselves get that cold!
Kaz: It is a bit dangerous, but not too much! The biggest danger is simply slipping - it's very slippery in many palces. Other dangers might be crashing through ledges that have formed. If that happens, you don't fall into the lake (the ice is 12-15 feet thick!), but you can certainly bang your shins/knees on hard ice chunks that are nearby!
Brandi: The depth of our dives depends on the job that needs to be done. if we are collecting samples from specific depths, we go to those depths. Typically, our dives are not deeper than 60 feet - most are even in 40 feet or less. I have been to 110 feet in the ocean!
Conner: Yes, the glacier moves. The heavy snowpack from higher in the mountains is continually pushing on the ice below which caused it to move forward. 
Eldon: The winds were blowing at about 57 miles per hour during the katabatic winds that we recently experienced. But that's just a slight breeze compared to the potential wind strength of katabatics - they can be hurricane strength!
 
Well - I hope these answers help at least a little bit!
Cheers,
Robin 

Sun, 11/23/2008 - 16:29

Lollie Garay

Robin!
Thanks for your reply. We are on holiday break this week, but the students will be so happy to see your answers. We checked before we left , and I assured them we would see an answer upon our return! They are very curious about your work at the penguin ranch :)
Hope you have some time to celebrate Thanksgiving
Hasta luego, Lollie