COVID? No Geographic Area Too Remote

"The virus that causes COVID-19 spreads easily between people in close quarters on board ships, and the chance of getting COVID-19 on cruise ships is very high [even if people are fully vaccinated and have received a booster]."

"CDC has issued an Order that requires face masks to be worn by all travelers while on public transportation including all passengers on board and all personnel operating maritime conveyances traveling into, within, or out of the United States. Masks are also required while indoors at U.S. transportation hubs, including seaports and ferry terminals. Travelers are not required to wear a mask in outdoor areas of a conveyance."

U.S.Centers for Disease Control  

"[The decision] is particularly perplexing considering that cases identified on cruise ships consistently make up a very slim minority of the total population onboard."

"The majority of those cases are asymptomatic or mild in nature, posing little to no burden on medical resources onboard or onshore."

Cruise Lines International Association

 

"We don't like to see even one case, but our experience is a fraction of the comparable statistics of virtually any other comparable location or industry."

"Few businesses are subject to such intense scrutiny, regulation and disclosure requirements by so many authorities."

Richard Fain, CEO, Royal Caribbean

The Celebrity Summit cruise ship prepares to depart from Port Miami, Saturday, Nov. 27, 2021, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

"[The spread of the Omicron variant] may shape how some destination authorities view even a small number of cases, even when they are being managed with our vigorous protocols."

"Some destinations have limited medical resources and are focused on managing their own local response to the variant [when they refuse a cruise ship entry to their waters and deny docking permission]."

"Should it be necessary to cancel a port, we will do our best to find an alternative destination,"

Carnival spokesperson AnneMarie Mathews  

All travellers -- even those fully vaccinated, according to the U.S.Centers for Disease Control -- should avoid cruises. The agency had received reports of 5,013 COVID-19 cases on ships in American waters between December 14 and 29, representing a massive increase over the previous two weeks when 162 cases were reported. Some 91 ships carrying passengers from U.S. waters reported cases in the past seven days that meet the threshold for CDC investigation and recommendation.

 

 Understandably, the Cruise Lines International Association is a trifle annoyed at this intervention and  interruption in their tourism business, thriving now, having recovered from the 'floating coffin' era of a year earlier when the global pandemic had just begun its disastrous sweep through the world. It is the cruise industry's focus to offer tourism on a grand scale, each of these monster vessels carrying the equivalent of a fair-sized town to exotic destinations. It is the mission of the CDC to stop pandemics in their tracks -- if at all possible.

 

Over 80 cruise ships are now being investigated by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, all of which have experienced COVID-19 outbreaks. A new colour-coded system was implemented by the cruise industry and the CDC to help monitor and control virus outbreaks. 85 ships from Norwegian Cruise Lines, Disney, Carnival Corp. and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines were given yellow flags, triggering a CDC investigation.

 

A yellow flag denotes that coronavirus cases were reported in over 0.10 percent of passengers; with 6,500 passengers on board a cruise ship; seven or more cases have been diagnosed during the previous week, and yet other cases reported among the liner's crew. 25 ships operated by Royal Caribbean were given a yellow label; one, the Odyssey of the Seas, began skipping ports, heading back to Fort Lauderdale Florida after 55 people on board tested positive for COVID-19.

 

The Seven Seas Mariner, Manfred Segerer/ullstein bild/Getty Images

 Should sustained transmission of COVID-19 go on to overwhelm medical resources on board, the CDC will review a ship for proposed red status; none yet have been labelled with a red flag. The alert system of colour-coding numbers of affected passengers applies only to ships  sailing or planning to enter U.S. waters. In Canada, Transport Canada banned cruise ships in Canadian waters for a year, a ban scheduled to be lifted in February 2022. Canadians continue to be advised by government to avoid all travel on cruise ships outside the country for the present.

 

COVID-19 has led the cruising industry to gigantic losses of an estimated $32 billion, aside from the hit to the industry's reputation which suffered from early reports of mass COVID outbreaks, leaving ships marooned with sick passengers, refused entry to ports. In self-defence the cruise industry enacted strict COVID0-19 mitigation protocols with testing, vaccination mandates, enhanced ventilation systems, mask-wearing, physical distancing and other public health protocols.

 

But COVID-19 is a dangerously sneaky, pervasive, pernicious threat, particularly the Omicron variant. With the best of avoidance protocols in place, the virus eerily turns up in the most unexpected places. While it's easily understood that the virus can proliferate and infect prodigiously as nature permits it to do, in an environment where in effect, thousands of people are sitting ducks on a ship, despite heroic efforts to keep everyone safe, it's a little more difficult to explain how in the most isolated place on the planet, COVID still showed up.

 

As it did in Antarctica at the Princess Elizabeth Polar Station where two thirds of Belgium's 25 staff have been infected. Despite being fully vaccinated, living far from civilization, polar researchers contracted the coronavirus. None of those infected exhibited severe symptoms. The outbreak occurred despite staff passing multiple PCR tests, quarantining, and living in one of the most remote areas on the planet. It entered with a scientist new arrived, who had been cleared by tests prior to arrival.

 

The Princess Elisabeth Polar Station in Antarctica in 2009. Photo by Philippe SIUBERSKI/AFP via Getty Images/File

 

 

 

 

The Icy South Pole

"Over 150 different research projects operate out of McMurdo Station every year, and all of them require a tremendous amount of logistical support, everything from moving heavy cargo to supplying food to getting people out to remote corners of the continent."
Michael Lucibella, editor, The Antarctic Sun

"We are living on borrowed time."
"If you designed it [the South Pole station] from scratch, you wouldn't have designed it the way it is [originally built as a Navy camp during the Cold War]."
Kelly K. Falkner, director of polar programs, National Science Foundation

McMurdo Station webcams    USAP Portal

The South Pole station known as McMurdo Station located in Antarctica is where some of the world's most vital astronomical observatories are located. There is one that has been designed to detect neutrinos, products of violent events taking place in the universe, such as exploding stars. Hundreds of scientist from around the world are welcomed annually to further their studies of collapsing ice caps.

But of course, their studies are far more variously-inclined than just concerns over ice caps melting, serious as that is. Biologists come to study the mating habits of penguins, geologists to try to ferret out some of the history of the Earth's formation, and needless to say, astrophysicists to probe the mysteries of the still-unfathomable, distant and endlessly complex cosmos.

Comprised of a core collection of U.S. Navy huts built sixty years ago, McMurdo Station has developed into a small town, housing over a thousand people during peak observation and study months. It represents the hub of the American Antarctic research program. And it is facing a crisis of existence where the aging, inefficient buildings are due for replacement at a hefty projected cost of hundreds of millions.

The American fleet has one supply ship, and one only in the Polar Star, an aging 40-year-old vessel stationed under the command of the U.S. Coast Guard. A newer ship with the capacity to break heavy sea ice is badly needed. Russia's commitment to the very same type of investments and for similar purposes has seen its fleet of icebreakers expand to 50, several of which are powered by nuclear reactors.

The cost associated with a single, new American icebreaker is in the neighbourhood of $1-billion, funding yet to be allocated by the U.S. Congress. "Anything we get, we squeeze every bit of life out of it", Paul Sheppard, deputy head of Antarctic logistics for the National Science Foundation, stated of the patchwork gracing heavy equipment to keep outdated equipment running past their best-before date.

Using McMurdo as a base, scientists are able to fly out to field camps located deep within the interior of the Antarctic, or to plumb the depths of the ocean and to latch on to helicopters flying to nearby McMurdo Dry Valleys, a region free of ice where for hundreds of millions of years the history of the planet can be seen exposed geologically in the hillsides.

There are over a hundred buildings, from small to large at McMurdo, and their size and placement is beyond inconvenient and inefficient for those who work there. Warehouses, dormitories and edifices with various functions would be combined in larger, taller buildings, as an example of a useful redesign, one which would require less energy and enable greater efficiency for those who labor there.

"We are sprinting out of the starting blocks to build the first heavy icebreaker by 2023", Admiral Paul F. Zukunft, commandant of the Coast Guard, confided optimistically.

Inexorable Climate Shift in Antarctica

"People will think of Antarctica quite rightly as a very icy place, but our work shows that parts of it are green, and are likely to be getting greener."
"Even those relatively remote ecosystems, that people might think are relatively untouched by humankind, are showing the effects of human-induced climate change."
"We're starting back on a journey toward that sort of environment [a different landscape]. Certainly, Antarctica has not always been the ice place it has been now on very long time-scales."
Matthew Amesbury, researcher, University of Exeter, Britain

Credit: University of Exeter Flickr 

"This is another indicator that Antarctica is moving backward in geologic time -- which makes sense, considering atmospheric C02 levels have already risen to levels that the planet hasn't seen since the Pliocene, 3 million years ago, when the Antarctic ice sheet was smaller, and sea-levels were higher."
"If greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked, Antarctica will head even further back in geologic time ... perhaps the peninsula will even become forested again some day, like it was during the greenhouse climates of the Cretaceous and Eocene, when the continent was ice-free."
Rob DeConto, glaciologist, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Credit: NASA

"These changes combined with increased ice-free land areas from glacier retreat, will drive large-scale alteration to the biological functioning, appearance, and landscape of the [Antarctic Peninsula] over the rest of the 21st Century and beyond."
Antarctica research study, Current Biology 

In the Arctic a greening trend on a very large scale has been captured by satellite photography where so much plant growth has appeared now that among some scientists there is hope that its presence might partially offset the loss of carbon from thawing permafrost under those plants. What has happened in the Arctic is also being reflected in its polar opposite geology, but on  an infinitely slower time-scale.

Antarctica researchers have discovered the presence of growing banks of mosses on the northern peninsula whose presence is validation to their scientific minds of climate change impacting the iciest, most remote areas of Planet Earth. Throughout the last fifty years the gradual warming of the atmosphere has resulted in the presence of two varied species of mosses appearing in spurts of growth. Mosses which at one time grew at a rate of under a millimetre annually, now grow at a rate of over 3 millimetres on average, yearly.

The study by Professor Amesbury and his colleagues with Cambridge University, the British Antarctic Survey and the University of Durham just saw publication in Current Biology. The study has shown that in parts of the Antarctic Peninsula, mosses now grow on frozen ground, partially thawing in the summer months to the first foot of permafrost depth. The Antarctica is a unique place on this Earth upon which plant life grows on less than one percent of its icescape.

In the summer months when the ground becomes partially thawed, surface mosses build into a thin surface layer which then freezes in winter. Layer upon layer builds up with older mosses sinking below the frozen ground to be well preserved as a result of the temperatures, representing "a record of changes over time", like geological fossil records. Dramatic changes in growth patterns back to 150 years earlier were identified through an examination of soil samples from a 644-kilometre area on the northern portion of the Peninsula.

Latterly, the Antarctic Peninsula has seen relatively rapid warming with increasing numbers of days annually where above-freezing temperatures are recognized. According to the study, a four- to five-fold increase in the amount of moss growth has materialized as a consequence of that warming, reflected in the more recent portion of the climate record.

The researchers took cores of the moss bank to examine 150 years of data to discover "changepoints" that occurred in the final 50 years, demonstrating moss cover increase which Professor Amesbury spoke of as a signifier of change in the region. That plant life exists on an admittedly minuscule portion of Antarctica of roughly 0.3 percent of the continent, but researchers feel the likelihood of increase is assured as the region continues to warm.

An ecosystem shift appears inevitable, reflecting the situation that researchers have discovered in the Arctic, as land cover increases with ice and snow withdrawal and more heat absorbed in the area. "It’s a clear sign that the biological response to climate warming is pervasive around the globe. The Antarctic Peninsula is often thought of as a very remote and possibly even untouched region, but this clearly shows that the effects of climate change are felt here", stated Professor Amesbury.

Antarctica, Petermann Island, Icicles hang from melting iceberg near Lemaire Channel Paul Souders_Getty Images

Destabilizing Antarctica's Ice Shelves

"We have previously shown that the new configuration will be less stable than it was before the rift, and that Larsen C may eventually follow the example of its neighbour Larsen B, which disintegrated in 2002 following a similar rift-induced calving event."
"[When it happens it is likely to] fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula."
Professor Adrian Luckman, Swansea University, leader, Project Midas

A 300-foot-wide rift in Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf, as seen in November 2016. John Sonntag/IceBridge/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

The continent of Antarctica, the world's most remote, hostile-to-human-existence area is changing, undergoing alterations in its geology, its ice-bound-and-preserved presence. The huge area of frozen white atop the continent, comprised of ice-shelf plateaus, ice fields, and slowly moving rivers of ice, mountains frozen in time and space, is vast, a forlorn landscape of deathly beauty, both spectacularly lovely and a challenge to the preservation of life.

It represents a geology and an atmosphere that beckons scientists to salve the curiosity of their questing minds, and explorers to risk their lives to discover and to map its challenging formations and characteristics. A British based Antarctic research project out of Swansea and Aberystwyth Universities studying the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula has observed, through satellite images, another crack appearing in the continent's largest ice shelves.

Antarctica's Larsen B Ice Shelf is likely to shatter into hundreds of icebergs before the end of the decade, according to a new NASA study.    Credits: NSIDC/Ted Scambos

The research team anticipates that an immense mass comprised of 2,000 square miles of ice is preparing to break away from the ice shelf named Larsen C. They have observed a large rift about 180 km long advancing in size in recent years. The crack, in the last six years has grown by about 130 km; an additional 27 km between December and mid-January alone. Now it seems the crack no longer is extending its length, but has been increasing its width at more than a metre a day.

The width of the crack has exceeded 300 metres. Another concern has developed with the appearance of an entirely new branch splitting away from the main rift, splintering off toward the ocean. Calling it a 'splinter' is a liberal figure of speech in its description, since it is estimated to be roughly 15 km in length. Should the chunk of ice finally split into the sea, about ten percent of the ice shelf's area will be swept away, making the entire shelf unstable.

In 2002, a sister ice shelf, named Larsen B, splintered when an unusually mild Antarctic summer caused the ice to begin melting. Over 1,200 square miles of ice in the course of a month collapsed, following a 1994 collapse of Larsen A. These are shelves that jut out of the edge of the Antarctic, resting on the ocean surface. Their presence acts as an 'edge', stabilizing glaciers. Scientists conceive of a scenario of a flood of ice unleashing from the Antarctic because of the crumbling shelves, raising sea levels.

Diti Torterat/Wikipedia (CC BY 2.0)

Mission : Grim Necessity

"It's never an easy place to fly.But there are additional challenges for a winter flight."
"Obviously, we wouldn't undertake this mission if, on the basis of medical experts, it wasn't felt that it was necessary to bring this person out of the South Pole, to a place where they can get treatment that's not available at the pole."
"They're flying across a continent the size of the U.S. and Mexico combined." 
"Weather is a very difficult thing to keep track of. [It's] much more difficult than it would be, say, in Canada, for example, or the United States."
Peter West, spokesman, National Science Foundation

Postmedia News    An image from Kenn Borek's successful 2001 rescue flight to Antarctica's Amundsen-Scott research station, located at the South Pole.

Famously, the world learned in 1999 just how remote and inaccessible Antarctica is during its winter season, when-mid February to late October are the times when it is accessible. When in a place that is exceedingly frigid at any time, it becomes even more so in its winter months, compounded by round-the-clock darkness as well as the distance it takes from civilization to the world's most isolated place on the planet.

This was when Dr. Jerri Nielson who had signed on for a year on contract to become the Amundsen-Scott Research Station's doctor-in-residence. Only to discover that she herself became her most-in-need of emergency treatment patient when she discovered herself with advanced breast cancer. Because she couldn't, at that time be evacuated, even for an emergency like hers, she consulted over email with cancer surgeons and proceeded to take her own breast biopsy.

An emergency follow-up drop of needed medical supplies for Dr. Nielson to embark upon a treatment protocol for her cancer resulted, with South Pole colleagues aiding Dr. Nielson as required to ensure that the treatment was carried forward. The chemotherapy that she trained her colleagues to administer resulted after a second biopsy using updated materials included in the drop confirmed her cancer diagnosis.

Photo: credit Nori Jemil

Fast forward to 2016, and two Twin Otter planes flying out of Calgary's Kenn Borek Air, prepared to navigate the expected and the unexpected in hopes of rescuing a severely ill researcher in a medical evacuation. One of the planes is to remain on arrival at the Rothera British station for search and rescue, and the second is set to travel forward to the Admunsen-Scott Research Station at the South Pole.

A seasonal employee with Lockheed Martin stationed there is in dire need of hospitalization, according to the National Science Foundation. The Amundsen-Scott Station represents a research hub operated by the United States located as far inland in Antarctica as it is possible to be, and as such it is one of the most isolated places on Earth.

The journey is 16,700 kilometre in length. But this is not just any journey. June represents the midpoint of the southern hemisphere's winter season where temperatures can and do hover around -60C. This, at a time and season where the ski remains dark for months on end, and weather always a questionmark, making flights rare. But the small passenger and cargo airline that is Kenn Borek has flown rescue missions there in the past.

Chris Martin / National Science Foundation via Postmedia News     Two Calgary pilots, Sean Loutitt and Mark Cary, landed this Kenn Borek plane at the South Pole in 2001 as part of a successful evacuation mission.

It flew into Amundsen-Scott to evacuate workers requiring hospitalization in 2001 and 2003. Yet the dangers are real and when a disaster occurs help is not just around the corner. In January 2013, a flight delivering fuel to an Italian research team saw one of Kenn Borek's planes crash into an Antarctic mountain south of New Zealand; all three people aboard died.

The distance from Calgary to Amundsen-Scott requires stops in the U .S., Costa Rica, Ecuador and Chile -- accounting for those 16,700 kilometres. Upon leaving South America the planes fly south to Rothera to set up camp and from there decide when it would be most feasible to fly on for an aerial pass at Amundsen-Scott.

The Ultimate Getaway

"How do people's psychological processes go when they're down there for a whole year? There's very little in the way of quantitative data."
"In fact a fair number of people say the culture shock is greater coming back [from Antarctica] than it was going there."
Dr. Peter Suedfeld, UBC psychology professor emeritus

"Overwintering crew members regress further into their own rooms and minds, which can be dangerous."
"It's almost as if our senses become under-stimulated and wither in the darkness, ice and silence. So when a new stimuli comes along it can be disproportionately fascinating. It has been some time since I stubbed my toe walking around the station barefooted in the dark. But I can tell you it hurt each and every time, even more."
British medical doctor Alexander Kumar

"With no point of reference [continual winter-dark atmosphere] I regularly find myself wide-awake in the middle of the night and falling asleep at lunch!"
"We greeted it [the returning sun] as if it was a long-lost friend."
British doctor Beth Healey

ESA   The barren landscape surrounding Concordia station in Antarctica is often dubbed “White Mars.”

Well, that's the environment, temperatures ranging around minus-80 degrees Centigrade, feeling worse, much worse, when a snowstorm is raging and the wind bellowing, amid perpetual darkness during Antarctica long winter months. But these are the conditions in the white endless landscape of a barren southernmost tip of the Earth. Those who are stationed there are subject to emotional ups and downs, coping with sensory deprivation, loneliness and bone-tingling dry conditions.

Since the Antarctic landscape resembles what scientists consider to be an other-worldly landscape in outer space, research is being conducted specifically to study the psychological and physical effects on the human brain and body through living in the harsh conditions of Antarctica in the hope that this will give insights into the changes that astronauts will encounter and need to struggle with in future space missions to other planets in the empty, cold and dark atmosphere of space.

Canadian researchers supported by financial grants from the Canadian Space Agency have set out to collaborate on a global research project focusing on the effects of living in icy-harsh conditions, and how that might translate to understanding what will be in store for coping mechanisms for future space travel. Studies are under way at two research stations, the Concordia station operated by French and Italian polar institutes and the Halley station, operated by the British Antarctic Survey.

ESA   For nine months, no aircraft or land vehicles can reach Concordia station in Antarctica and the Sun does not rise above the horizon for 100 days

Dr. Suedfeld points out the conditions faced by people living in Antarctica with its vast white desert, isolated from contact with others by distance and harsh climate; almost unreachable during the cold winter months when few flights can be safely managed should rescue be required. Although medical practitioners are stationed there, what they can accomplish is limited. Famously the American doctor, Jerri Nielson had to operate on herself when she discovered she had breast cancer.

If interpersonal relations become strained, there is nowhere to retire to other than each individual's private room. There is high interest in how and whether brain function may undergo alterations from what is considered the norm; whether and how sleep patterns could be deleteriously affected, and how eyes accustomed to light during the day and darkness at night when we normally sleep, might be impacted when there is no difference between night and day; black night consumes both day and night.

Professor Suedfeld is prepared to analyze audio diaries that crew members are tasked to record on a weekly basis; pitch, rhythm and speed are assessed to determine whether stressors are present linked to living conditions. Cardiovascular systems, muscle function and bone marrow cells will be examined to determine what, if any changes occur, just as they do in the weightlessness of space which impacts on the body accustomed to Earth's gravity.

Internet and telephone access is available, just as these modes of communication are present in space ships. But it has been observed through personal introspection by crew members like Alexander Kumar that a tendency to withdraw during the long winter prevails. When the sun reappears in spring, there is a release of tensions. This, in fact, is what northern-dwelling people experience, living in their normal exposure to long, harsh winter months, expressing relief when winter succumbs to spring.

For those who have the experience of living in the vast isolation of the Antarctic, busy in spurts, boringly without activity at many other times, their exposure to a hauntingly beautiful landscape, and the camaraderie in the presence of others isolated along with them can change the way people regard life, and transform them in many ways. They have an idea of the strength of their endurance, their resilience and creativity.

ESA   The aurora australis is a well-deserved bonus for the crew of 13 who are spending the winter months at Concordia station in Antarctica

Arcane Evolutionary Mystique

"It really shows how tenacious life is. The possibilities are just beyond our prediction."
Professor Reed Scherer, micropaleontology, Northern Illinois University

"[When the research scientists saw the first fish they] started screaming and yelling and clapping. [By the time they saw fish repeatedly] we got to the point of, 'Oh, there's another fish', instead of, 'Oh my God! There's a fish'!"
Professor Ross Powell

You'd think these scientists had never seen a fish before. What could be more commonplace than fish, for heaven's sake, in the ocean? It's where anyone would expect to see them, after all. Fish, and any number of other aquatic creatures, from the size of walruses to the minuscule proportions of bacteria thriving in salt water. We know the world's oceans are thriving with various types of aquatic life. New species being identified all the time. And complaints about catches of the most popular types of table-fish diminishing.

And some countries (all right; Japan, detested by Greenpeace) which traditionally hunt for whales gaining an extremely bad reputation for continuing to hunt them even as the strain upon their numbers from over-hunting are placing them in the diminishing-species category. And animal activists going out of their way to rev up their propaganda networks toward boycotting of the annual seal slaughter off Canada's East Coast; Norway not so much.

A leopard seal rests on a piece of floating ice near the Chilean station Bernardo O'Higgins, Antarctica on Jan. 22, 2015. (AP / Natacha Pisarenko)

So, why the surprise over seeing a fish ... in Antarctica's South Shetland Island archipelago ... oh, that's why. The deep, dark underworld of the frozen South Pole. Really deep. Really dark. Places that haven't seen sunlight for actually aeons, as in millions of years, that long ago. Yet there they are, both microscopic creature and translucent fish of eye-ready dimensions.

On the other hand, who might anticipate that worms could be found within frozen ice? Alive, that is. In great numbers. Worms which by nature have their own natural anti-freeze, that keeps them thriving in ice. They're seen in great numbers in Alaska and parts of Washington State and British Columbia. Living in glaciers. Really.
Ice Worm on Easton Glacier (Marieve Desjardins)

"You don't have to be a rocket scientist to look around and see how extreme this environment is", commented biochemist Jenny Blamey, surrounded by ice-blanketed black volcanic rock on Deception Island, Antarctic. "This is really like a desert, where you have extreme low temperatures", Ms. Blamey, research director at the Biosciences Foundation Chile, studying the genetic material of micro-organisms, explained.

Researchers who had trekked hundreds of kilometres from established structures or from a research post to reach a National Science Foundation mobile base camp at the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, placed a remote-controlled submarine over a half kilometre deep under the ice to search for what could be seen under one of Antarctica's melting ice sheets.

It happens to represent an area on Earth of total darkness, one thousand kilometres from the closest ocean, nine metres of water under ice where the water tests at -2Centigrade, but because of the salt permeating it, remains unfrozen. When the cameras were turned on there was a thin, almost translucent fish darting about while amphipods, orange-shelled, drifted by.

An amphipod lies on ice shortly after it was brought to the surface, in a sediment lab set up in Antarctica on Jan. 19, 2015. The animal was fished out of an area of total darkness far from the ocean, where it was living a space of 30 feet of liquid water under the ice. (Reed Scherer / National Science Foundation and Northern Illinois University)

An attempt to net a fish or two failed, although some amphipods cooperated. The researchers also travelled to remote Lake Vostok, a freshwater lake buried under 3.7 km of ice, which hasn't been exposed to open air for an estimated fifteen million years. When scientists took water samples and tested for life traces they discovered genetic sequences for 3,507 recognizable species, about ten thousand of which were unknown to science.

This image released by Bob Goldstein and Vicki Madden taken with an electron microscope, shows a tardigrade, micro-animal also known as a water bear, at the UNC in Chapel Hill, N.C. In Jan. 2015, scientists found the DNA of a tardigrade in Antarctica's Lake Vostok, located in an area considered the most remote place on Earth. (UNC Chapel Hill)

"It seems like most of [them] were alive recently", said Scott Rogers, a professor of microbiology at Kentucky's Bowling Green State University, who was part of the study team. "You start to wonder if that couldn't happen on an icy moon or exo-planet", Lisa Kaltenegger, astronomer and director of the Institute for Pale Blue Dots at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, suggested.

Antarctic rescue: US ice-breaker to help stuck ships

BBC News online -- 5 January 2014

The Polar Star is the US Coast Guard's only active heavy polar ice-breaker

A US ice-breaker is to help two ships that are stuck in thick ice in Antarctica following a rescue mission.

The Polar Star has been asked to cut a path through the ice in order to free the Xue Long and the Akademik Shokalskiy, the US Coast Guard said.

The Chinese boat, Xue Long, became ice-bound after helping to rescue 52 passengers stranded on Akademik Shokalskiy on Thursday.

The Russian research vessel has been trapped since 24 December.

The US ice-breaker is responding to requests for assistance from the Australian authorities as well as from the Russian and Chinese governments, the US Coast Guard said in a statement.

"Our highest priority is safety of life at sea, which is why we are assisting in breaking a navigational path for both of these vessels," said Vice Adm Paul Zukunft, commander of Coast Guard Pacific Area.

The Xue Long helped to rescue passengers trapped on the Akademik Shokalskiy since 24 December

A helicopter from the Chinese vessel transported the passengers to a ice floe next to the Aurora Australis

The Xue Long has confirmed on Friday that it too had become stuck in the ice

 

The Polar Star, which is specifically designed for open-water icebreaking, was due to leave Sydney, Australia, on Sunday and is expected to arrive at the stranded ships in a week's time, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa).

It comes after the Xue Long confirmed it was trapped following a rescue mission to remove passengers on board the Akademik Shokalskiy.

On Thursday, a helicopter from the Chinese ship transferred 52 people from the Akademik Shokalskiy to the Australian vessel, the Aurora Australis.

Most of the Russian crew-members stayed on board the Akademik Shokalskiy.

The Russian research vessel became trapped by thick floes of ice driven by strong winds, about 1,500 nautical miles south of Hobart - the capital of the Australian state of Tasmania.

It was being used by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) 2013 to follow the route explorer Douglas Mawson travelled a century ago.

The Return to Mawson's Antarctica

• The 2013 Australasian Antarctic Expedition repeats scientific investigations made by Douglas Mawson and his team between 1911 and 1914
• Andrew Luck-Baker and Alok Jha are reporting on the expedition for Discovery on the BBC World Service
• Listen to Part One, Part Two and Part Three of their story, or get the Discovery podcast

Several attempts to break through to the ship by sea - by the Xue Long, Aurora Australis and French-flagged L'Astrolabe - failed because of the thickness of the ice.

The team on board said the ship was stocked with food and was in no danger.
There are 111 individuals on the Xue Long and 22 remaining crew on the Shokalskiy.

The Aurora Australis will now transport the rescued passengers to Hobart, once it has completed a re-supply mission at the Casey research base on the Windmill Islands, just outside the Antarctic Circle.

Meanwhile Prof Chris Turney, co-leader of the AAE 2013, has defended the scientific value of the expedition and rejected claims it was a "tourist trip" hampered by poor preparation.

Writing in the UK's Observer newspaper, he said the trip had been struck by bad luck as opposed to human error. He said it was an important scientific expedition and its success would ultimately be measured by peer-reviewed studies.

The Polar Star is 399ft (120m) long with a maximum speed of 18 knots, the US Coast Guard said. It can continuously break 6ft (1.8m) of ice at three knots, and can break 21ft (6.4m) of ice by backing and ramming.

The vessel has been diverted from its mission to break a channel through the ice to resupply the US Antarctic research station on Ross Island - but will return to that task once it has freed the trapped ships.

The Australasian Antarctic Expedition

"We've sung with the seals, danced with the birds, played around with the oceanographers. And now we wish you a happy New Year, BUT BLOODY GREAT SHAME WE ARE STILL STUCK HERE!"
"What do you expect us to do? It's cold out there: We're alone from everyone else -- we have to drink something."
New Year's ditty by passengers and crew of the MV Akademik Shokalskiy

What an adventure. What an expedition! What an opportunity to take part in an event of environmental concern and one that would, as it just happened, transfix the attention of the world at large on the perils of an Antarctic summer. Not just anyone gets to sing Auld Lang Syne at the South Pole. And do it in the presence of a veritable scientific community of researchers fixed on proving that Global Warming menaces the world's future as we know it.

Summer in Antarctica admittedly, is not like summer anywhere else on Earth. And the declining sea icepack makes the area navigable, because, of course, it's summer. Except for the fact that a most inconvenient blizzard entered the equation. And oh yes, thick sea ice trapping their vessel. And the Russian ship became trapped, stuck roughly 2,735 km south of Hobart Tasmania.

Their plight compelled three icebreaking vessels to set out to their rescue.

"We're stuck in our own experiment", stated the expedition team on FoxNews.com. "We came to Antarctica to study how one of the biggest icebergs in the world has altered the system by trapping ice. We ... are now ourselves trapped by ice surrounding our ship." The purpose: to revisit a century old expedition, to compare the ice-trend readings of one hundred years ago by Australian Antarctic geologist Douglas Mawson, to the present.

Who might imagine that a group of researchers intent on tracking global warming might end up getting stuck in sea ice they assumed was receding. The Australian Antarctic Division of the maritime safety authority dispatched its ship Aurora Australis to help the stranded revellers. Closer to the site was the Chinese icebreaker vessel Xue Long which had to abort several rescue attempts when it too got caught in the ice.

^{Passengers stamp out a helicopter landing site on the ice near the MV Akademik Shokalskiy (AFP/Getty Images)}
 
But which managed eventually to send out its helicopter to mount a rescue operation; a "complex operation involving a number of steps", dependent on weather. The scientists and volunteers (the latter helping to defray the costs of the venture by their $8,000 passage fee) 52 in number, were shuttled a dozen at a time for seven flights to the ship. Leaving the 22-person crew remaining on the stranded ship, while the rescued 52 were picked up by the Aurora Australis.

Rescue, what a sweet end to an exciting adventure in the vicissitudes of nature and the environment. The essence of exhilarating life; never a dull moment; expect the unexpected. And most certainly, Global Warming leads one to expect that the passage to Antarctica would be unopposed by Nature. And here she was, with her devilish sense of fun, planning to throw a spanner into the works by presenting the expedition with massive layers of sea ice.

^{Rescue workers make their way from a helicopter to the Russian ship Akademik Shokalskiy, which has been trapped in Antarctic ice since Christmas Eve (Andrew Peacock/AFP/Getty Images)}

But all is well that ends well. And now, unfortunately, the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long is itself well stuck, not too distant alongside the MV Akademik Shokalskiy in thick, unrelenting sea ice. Never mind, it's likely the more powerful American icebreaker still headed their way will solve that additional unanticipated trick of nature.

Antarctic rescue: Chinese ship Xue Long 'stuck in ice'

BBC News online -- 3 January 2014

The Chinese vessel, Xue Long, has confirmed fears that it has also become stuck in the ice

The Chinese ice-breaker that helped rescue passengers stranded on the Akademik Shokalskiy vessel in Antarctica is now stuck itself.

An Australian ice-breaker carrying the rescued passengers is no longer on standby and is returning to shore.

On Thursday, a helicopter from the Chinese ship, Xue Long, transferred 52 passengers from the Akademik Shokalskiy to the Aurora Australis.

The Russian boat has been trapped by thick floes of ice since 24 December.

"Xue Long's attempt to manoeuvre through the ice... was unsuccessful. Xue Long has confirmed to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) [that] it is beset by ice," Amsa said in a statement on Saturday.

"The master of Xue Long has confirmed to Amsa that the ship is safe, it is not in distress and does not require assistance at this time," Amsa said, adding that there was no immediate danger to the ice-breaker's crew.

It is the latest twist in what has become a complicated rescue operation in the Antarctic.

BBC reporter Andrew Luck-Baker, who is on board the Aurora Australis, said: "The irony of the situation is that the Xue Long was originally summoned to break a clear route through the pack ice to the smaller Russian vessel. That was not possible and the large icebreaker is now trapped itself."

 
The Australian Aurora Australis had been asked to remain in open water nearby in case the Xue Long needed help - but Amsa said this was no longer needed and it had been released from its search and rescue mission.

The authority added that the Australian vessel was travelling to the Casey research base on the Windmill Islands, just outside the Antarctic Circle, to complete a re-supply task before continuing to Hobart - the capital of the Australian state of Tasmania.

Andrew Peacock, an Australian doctor and photographer who was rescued from the Russian ship, spoke of his fellow passengers' frustration aboard the Aurora over the latest delay in their journey home, according to the Associated Press.

"So our time down south is not over yet and we are going to be delayed in our return to friends and family by some time yet, which is frustrating," Mr Peacock said before the Aurora was given permission to continue.

All 52 passengers on the Shokalskiy were rescued and transferred to the Aurora Australis on Thursday

A helicopter from the Chinese Xue Long transported the passengers

Passengers from the Shokalskiy stamped out a helicopter landing site on the ice 

 

The Akademik Shokalskiy, a Russian research vessel, became trapped by thick floes of ice driven by strong winds, about 1,500 nautical miles south of Hobart.

The vessel was being used by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) 2013 to follow the route explorer Douglas Mawson travelled a century ago.

Several attempts to break through to the ship by sea - by the Xue Long, Aurora Australis and French-flagged L'Astrolabe - failed because of the thickness of the ice.

The team on board said the ship was stocked with food and was in no danger.

On Thursday, a helicopter from the Xue Long managed to fly the Shokalskiy's passengers and researchers in groups to an ice floe next to the Aurora Australis.

The Return to Mawson's Antarctica

• The 2013 Australasian Antarctic Expedition repeats scientific investigations made by Douglas Mawson and his team between 1911 and 1914
• Andrew Luck-Baker and Alok Jha are reporting on the expedition for Discovery on the BBC World Service
• Listen to Part One, Part Two and Part Three of their story, or get the Discovery podcast

They were then ferried to the Aurora Australis by a small boat.

Most of the Russian crew-members are staying on board the Akademik Shokalskiy until the vessel is able to reach open water.

Members of the AAE have paid tribute to the Chinese captain, Jianzhong Wang, and his crew.
Prof Tracey Rogers, a marine biologist at the University of New South Wales, praised the helicopter evacuation team that made five separate flights to ferry the AAE members from the stranded Shokalskiy to a makeshift helipad close to the Aurora Australis.

"Under really difficult circumstances, they were efficient, fast and so well coordinated," she said.
Prof Chris Turney, co-leader of the AAE 2013, said he was sorry to hear that the Xue Long was now in difficulty: "We are hoping that they, along with the crew of the Shokalskiy, will be free as soon as possible."

There are 111 individuals on the Xue Long and 22 remaining crew on the Shokalskiy.

Antarctic rescue of Akademik Shokalskiy ship completed

BBC News online -- 2 January 2014

The BBC's Andrew Luck-Baker described his "exhilarating" rescue on a Chinese helicopter

Rescuers in Antarctica have safely transferred all 52 passengers stranded on the ice-bound research vessel Akademik Shokalskiy.

The Australian rescue operators said the scientists and tourists were now all aboard the ship Aurora Australis.

They were flown there in groups by a helicopter from a Chinese ice-breaker.

The Shokalskiy has been trapped since 24 December. Its 22 crew are expected to remain on board to wait until the vessel becomes free.

The Shokalskiy was trapped by thick sheets of ice driven by strong winds, about 1,500 nautical miles south of Hobart - the capital of the Australian state of Tasmania.

The vessel was being used by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition to follow the route explorer Douglas Mawson travelled a century ago.

"We've made it to the Aurora australis safe & sound. A huge thanks to the Chinese & @AusAntarctic for all their hard work!," expedition leader Chris Turney tweeted.

The helicopter belongs to the Chinese icebreaker, Xue Long, and each flight took about 45 minutes, round-trip.

The first group of passengers is airlifted out

The ship's passengers sang songs on New Year's Day as they awaited rescue

Members of the crew and passengers stamped out a landing site for the helicopter

The Akademik Shokalskiy has been trapped since Christmas Eve

The BBC's Andrew Luck-Baker, who was on board the Akademik Shokalskiy, says the 15-minute one-way flight was a "white-knuckle ride".

The passengers were taken to an ice floe next to the Aurora Australis and then ferried on to the ice-breaker by a small boat.

Our correspondent says the Russian crew staying behind could be on the Akademik Shokalskiy for weeks before the pack ice clears.

The Return to Mawson's Antarctica

• The 2013 Australasian Antarctic Expedition repeats scientific investigations made by Douglas Mawson and his team between 1911 and 1914
• Andrew Luck-Baker and Alok Jha are reporting on the expedition for Discovery on the BBC World Service
• Listen to Part One, Part Two and Part Three of their story, or get the Discovery podcast

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority's (Amsa) Rescue Co-ordination Centre, which was overseeing the operation, had earlier said it was unlikely the rescue would go ahead on Thursday as hoped because of the sea-ice conditions.

But it later reported: "Aurora Australis has advised Amsa that the 52 passengers from the Akademik Shokalskiy are now on board."

The passengers are not expected back in Tasmania until mid-January.

Several attempts to break through to the ship by sea - by the Xue Long, Aurora Australis and French-flagged L'Astrolabe - failed because of the thickness of the ice.

Andrew Luck-Baker says the Aurora Australis, although big, was simply not up to the task and there is speculation two larger vessels may be coming to the area in the weeks to come.

Despite being trapped, the scientists continued their experiments, measuring temperature and salinity through cracks in the surrounding ice.

One of the aims was to track how quickly the Antarctic's sea ice was disappearing.
The ship had plenty of stocks and was never in danger.

Antarctic air rescue for ice-bound ship due to start

BBC News online -- 1 January 2014

Scientists and others from the trapped ship have been preparing an area for a helicopter to land on the ice nearby

Helicopter operations to rescue scientists aboard an ice-bound ship in the Antarctic are likely to begin shortly, say officials.

Weather conditions have improved in the area and are expected to stay favourable for the next 36 hours, said Australia-based rescue co-ordinators.

The ship, the Akademik Shokalskiy, with 74 passengers and and crew aboard, has been stuck since Christmas Eve.

Earlier efforts by three different icebreakers to free it failed.

The plan now is to ferry groups of passengers by helicopter to the Chinese icebreaker Xue Long from where they will be taken by sea to the Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis.

The helicopter operations alone are expected to take five hours.

The rescue will be a complex operation involving a number of steps and subject to factors such as the weather, said the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's Rescue Co-ordination Centre (RCC).

It has been told that all 52 passengers - comprising scientists and tourists - will leave the Shokalskiy. All 22 crew are expected to remain on board.

The research ship has been stuck for more than a week

 

The passengers will be rescued by the Chinese helicopter in groups of 12 and initially transported a distance of 12 nautical miles to the Xue Long (Snow Maiden).

The rescue is expected to be undertaken in a total of seven flights - the first five involving passengers, the remainder ferrying luggage and equipment.

Passengers will then be taken by barge across clear water for about two nautical miles to the Aurora Australis. 

The Return to Mawson's Antarctica

• The 2013 Australasian Antarctic Expedition repeats scientific investigations made by Douglas Mawson and his team between 1911 and 1914
• Andrew Luck-Baker and Alok Jha are reporting on the expedition for Discovery on the BBC World Service
• Listen to Part One, Part Two and Part Three of their story, or get the Discovery podcast

The Shokalskiy was trapped on Christmas Eve by thick sheets of ice driven by strong winds, about 1,500 nautical miles south of Hobart - the capital of the Australian state of Tasmania.

Despite being trapped, the scientists have continued their experiments, measuring temperature and salinity through cracks in the surrounding ice.

The vessel is being used by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition to follow the route explorer Douglas Mawson travelled a century ago.

Rescue for Antarctic ice-bound ship under threat

BBC News online -- 31 December 2013

The ship is being used by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition

A rescue mission for a ship stuck in ice in Antarctica is under threat as reports have emerged that one of the assisting vessels may itself be stuck.

Fifty-two passengers and four crew members were due to be evacuated by helicopter from China's Xue Long ship as soon as conditions allowed.

However, the Xue Long has barely moved in a day and may be stuck in the ice.

The research vessel Akademik Shokalskiy has been trapped for nearly a week with 74 scientists, tourists and crew.

The ship is stocked with food and is in no danger, the team on board says.

The BBC's Andrew Luck-Baker says confusion surrounds the fate of the rescue vessel

The planned air evacuation required that the two icebreakers in the immediate area - the Xue Long and the Australian Aurora Australis - be positioned close to each other in open water, clear of the pack ice.

However, the captain of the Xue Long has told the Shokalskiy that he is keeping his vessel in a "holding position".

The Aurora Australis, is now understood to be planning to carve through the dense thick pack to assist the Xue Long.

Passengers had been preparing an area close to the stranded ship for a helicopter landing

 

The initial plan had been for a helicopter from the Xue Long to carry people in groups of 15 up from the pack ice next to the Shokalskiy.

The airlifted passengers would then be transferred by a small boat, deployed from the Australian icebreaker, onto the Aurora Australis.

The expedition members would then have travelled to Australia's Antarctic base at Casey some four days' voyage away.

The Return to Mawson's Antarctica

• The 2013 Australasian Antarctic Expedition repeats scientific investigations made by Douglas Mawson and his team between 1911 and 1914
• Andrew Luck-Baker and Alok Jha are reporting on the expedition for Discovery on the BBC World Service
• Listen to Part One, Part Two and Part Three of their story, or get the Discovery podcast

However, if the Chinese vessel is also stuck and the Australian vessel cannot help it reach clear water, there will be no airlift.

Under the initial plan, the remaining crew members would have stayed on board until another, more powerful US icebreaker arrived in up to 10 days' time, the BBC's Andrew Luck-Baker reports from on board the Akademik Shokalskiy

However, it may now be that all of those on board may have to wait for the US icebreaker, the Polar Star, he adds.

 

 

Earlier attempts by Chinese and French icebreakers to reach the ship were also foiled by the thick ice.
The Shokalskiy was trapped on Christmas Eve by thick sheets of ice, driven by strong winds, about 1,500 nautical miles south of Hobart - the capital of the Australian state of Tasmania.

Antarctic ship: Third rescue bid halted by bad weather

BBC News online -- 30 December 2013

The Shokalskiy is surrounded by an estimated 3m (10ft) wall of ice

A third attempt to rescue a ship stranded off East Antarctica since Tuesday has failed because of fierce winds and poor visibility.

An Australian icebreaker trying to reach the Russian scientific mission ship was forced to turn back.
Earlier attempts by Chinese and French icebreakers to reach the Russian ship Akademik Shokalskiy were also foiled by the thick ice.

The Shokalskiy is stocked with food and is in no danger, its team says.
Seventy-four scientists, tourists and crew are on the ship.

The vessel is being used by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition to follow the route explorer Douglas Mawson travelled a century ago.

The BBC's Andrew Luck-Baker, on the Shokalskiy, said scientists on board thought the ice was much thicker than usual for this time of year.

The Aurora Australis icebreaker had been forced to turn back to clear water and was repositioning to try to find another route towards the Shokalskiy, he said.

"[The icebreaker] was slowly, slowly, trying to carve a path to us," he said. "It stopped for some time, and [now] has actually gone back the way it came. And it's now in clear water."

A Chinese icebreaker failed to reach the Shokalskiy on Saturday

The Shokalskiy is stocked with food and the passengers were in no danger, the team on board said

Passengers could potentially be winched to safety by a helicopter when the weather improves

In a statement, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said: "The area where the MV Akademik Shokalskiy is beset by ice is currently experiencing winds of up to 30 knots and snow showers."

"These weather conditions have resulted in poor visibility and made it difficult and unsafe for the Aurora Australis to continue today's attempt to assist the MV Akademik Shokalskiy."

Earlier, it was thought that passengers could be winched to safety by a helicopter on board the Chinese icebreaker, which had to abort its rescue mission on Saturday.

However, AMSA spokeswoman Lisa Martin told Reuters news agency: "We can't fly a helicopter in these conditions either. There is essentially nothing we can do at this point of time."

A crew member on the ship has recoded a video diary 

The Aurora Australis would have to wait for the weather to improve before making a second rescue attempt, she added.

The Chinese vessel, the Snow Dragon, came within seven nautical miles (11 km) of the Russian ship before stalling and being forced to return to the open sea.

Despite being trapped, the scientists have continued their experiments, measuring temperature and salinity through cracks in the surrounding ice.

The Shokalskiy was trapped on Christmas Day by thick sheets of ice, driven by strong winds, about 1,500 nautical miles south of Hobart - the capital of the Australian state of Tasmania.

The Shokalskiy is trapped about 1,500 nautical miles south of Hobart - the capital of the Australian state of Tasmania

The ship has encountered penguins curious about their new neighbours