Hamilton College
Skip Main Navigation
Skip Section Navigation Expeditions and Explorations
Home
Antarctica 2005
Home Faculty Students Project Summary Itinerary & Map Images
Project Log
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 News: February 2005
More Information
Research and Publications Geosciences NSF Polar Programs U.S. Antarctic Program Science Discoveries from Antarctica
Past Expeditions
Antarctica 2004 Antarctica 2003
Contact Information

315-859-4623

Antarctica 2005

February 11 - March 11

An international (Canada, England, Spain, United States) team of researchers, including faculty and students from Hamilton and several other institutions, will begin a month-long expedition to Antarctica on February 11. The purpose of this expedition is to determine if events like the recent ice shelf breakups have occurred in the past 10,000 years or if these are unprecedented events. The Antarctic Peninsula is undergoing greater warming than almost anywhere on Earth, perhaps associated with human-induced greenhouse effects. Our proposed work contributes to understanding of these changes where they are occurring first and with greatest magnitude and impact upon the environment.

More Information

Read about the team's progress through their regularly updated project log.

Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4

The team will depart from Punta Arenas, Chile, and will spend the following four weeks on board the RV L.M. Gould. From the deck of this vessel, the team will collect water samples, core samples and gather video footage from the ocean floor for later analysis. Ultimately they will map and sample the sea floor.

Last year the research team was unable to access this area due to heavy ice conditions. This year the ice seems to be clearing, so the team will probably be able to enter the study area.

Faculty and students from Hamilton have been participating in research cruises in Antarctica for over a decade. They have primarily studied the Antarctic Peninsula region, but have also researched the East Antarctic Margin.

This project is funded through grants from the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs.


 


Facts about Antarctica


News

Ecosystem Beneath a Collapsed Antarctic Ice Shelf Discovered
The chance discovery of a vast ecosystem beneath the collapsed Larsen Ice Shelf will allow scientists to explore the uncharted life below Antarctica's floating ice shelves and further probe the origins of life in extreme environments. Researchers discovered the sunless habitat after reviewing a recent underwater video study examining a deep glacial trough in the northwestern Weddell Sea following the sudden Larsen B shelf collapse in 2002. More...

Kirkwood '05 Receives National Research Award for Antarctic Climate Study

Gemma Kirkwood
Gemma Kirkwood '05 received an Outstanding Student Paper Award for her presentation, "Solar vs. Tidal Forcing of Centennial to Decadal Scale Variability in Marine Sedimentary Records from the Western Antarctic Peninsula," at the 2004 fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. She was in competition with Ph.D. candidates as well as undergraduate students for this honor. The Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology Focus Group selected only two out of 169 student papers. More ...