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Soaking it up One of the most important organisms to the McMurdo Sound benthic (bottom-dwelling) community is the sea sponge. They are everywhere and amazing to see on every dive. ## The Wonderful World of Sponges Sponges come in a huge variety of shapes and sizes. It's really hard to talk about

Seals Everywhere! I've mentioned this a hundred times already, but after yesterday's dive, it's worth saying again. It's been a really active year for seal sightings. ## Meet the Weddell Seal The Weddell Seal is a relatively large and abundant seal that is distributed around Antarctica. It can be

Theodore and his team have had a lot of very "cool" experiences here at McMurdo, but there's one thing he's been dying to try... Today, Theodore got a special opportunity to join Dr. Marsh on his final dive of the 2011 season. ##Preparations First, Theodore had to clear the dive hole of ice. Next

Amongst all of the preparations being made for the expedition, I have been contacted by many news reporters interested in covering this event. The most common question I am asked is "WHY would you want to go to the Arctic in the WINTER?" I believe that all humans are inquisitive by nature...even

The Way to End a Dive At the end of today's dive, we observed a large jellyfish drifting towards us. To picture it in your mind, it was a little larger than a basketball. With cameras at the ready, we had a beautiful encounter with one of Antarctica's most graceful drifters. ## Meet the Antarctic

Organizing Biological classification is the science of organizing organisms on this planet into groups. The early work on biological classification began with many different scientists all the way back to Medieval times. Today's classification largely started with the work of Carolus Linnaeus in

Back in the Lab After the team returns from the dive with Dr. Stacy Kim's sampling. There is much work to be done. The process breaks down to three major steps: * Preservation of the cores * Still photo organization and analysis * Video organization and analysis ##Preserving the Cores First, we