Latest McMurdo Sound Stories

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Ranulph “Ran” Fiennes, dubbed by Guinness as “the world’s greatest living explorer,” set sail today for the Antarctic, leading a team of adventurers who want to be the first to cross the vast continent during winter. Fiennes has described the expedition as a trip into the unknown with no chance of rescue if the trek goes awry. Fiennes and crew left Cape Town, South Africa early Monday, cheered off by spectators and a...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A National Science Foundation (NSF) supported research team retrieved data from a sensor in Antarctic waters that they hope will provide critical baseline data for the acidification, or chemical changes, in those remote seas. Led by Gretchen Hofmann – professor of ecology, evolution and marine biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) – the all female team retrieved the sensor earlier this month following the...

Patient is currently stable but may require corrective surgery National Science Foundation (NSF) officials have set in motion the necessary steps to airlift a patient from McMurdo Station, one of three year-round stations NSF maintains in Antarctica. The patient's condition may require treatment beyond what can be provided at the station's medical facility. The patient, whose identity NSF is not releasing, is currently stable but may require immediate corrective surgery best delivered...

NSF partners with international team to gather new information on hidden environments and past climate conditions in Antarctica National Science Foundation- (NSF) funded researchers have successfully tested equipment to map the hidden distribution of groundwater and ice in the McMurdo Dry Valleys region for the first time in Antarctica. The mapping technique, an airborne electrical resistivity instrument, will enable researchers to study microbial ecosystems in sub-glacial environments....

[ Watch the Video ] In October 2011, researchers flying in NASA’s Operation IceBridge campaign made the first-ever detailed, airborne measurements of a major iceberg calving event while it was in progress. Four months later, the IceBridge team has mapped the crack in Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier in a way that allows glaciologists and the rest of us to fly through the icy canyon. The above image is a still frame captured from a three-dimensional, virtual flight through the new...

Application deadline is Nov. 28, 2011; deployments to take place Jan. 13-20, 2012 The National Science Foundation (NSF), manager of the U.S. Antarctic Program is accepting written requests from professional journalists to report on scientific research supported by NSF's Office of Polar Programs (OPP). Selected journalists will deploy to Antarctica for approximately one working week. NSF annually selects a small group of journalists, representing a range of news organizations, to make...

  Icebreaker will create channel allowing annual refueling and resupply of two U.S. stations in Antarctica The National Science Foundation (NSF) yesterday announced it has reached an agreement with a Russian company to charter a diesel icebreaker to create a channel through the sea ice of Antarctica's McMurdo Sound that will allow the annual refueling and resupply of two U.S. stations in Antarctica. NSF has signed a one-year contract, with an option for additional years, with the...

A team of scientists in the United Kingdom and the United States has warned that the native fauna and unique ecology of the Southern Ocean, the vast body of water that surrounds the Antarctic continent, is under threat from human activity. Their study is published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences."Although  Antarctica is still the most pristine environment on Earth, its marine ecosystems are being degraded through the introduction of alien...

Two men of the private Berserk expedition were flown on a U.S. Air Force transportTwo Norwegian citizens who were part of a private expedition that failed in its attempt to reach the South Pole have been flown from Antarctica to Christchurch, New Zealand aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane, National Science Foundation (NSF) officials have announced.Karl Erb, who heads the U.S Antarctic Program (USAP), which is managed by NSF, said the two arrived in Christchurch around midday on...

Amundsen Sea Polynya International Research Expedition (ASPIRE) Combines Research and EducationIn a unique and complex example of "science diplomacy," teams of U.S. and Swedish scientists are sailing this month aboard two research vessels to study the ecology of the Amundsen Sea, one of the least-explored and most productive bodies in Antarctic waters, and to gauge the potential effects of a changing climate on the Southern Ocean.The joint American and Swedish expedition, involving...