Wright Valley News Today

Unlocking the potential of Antarctic permafrost to constrain climate models

Dry Valleys of Antarctica have extremely low temperatures, low humidity, salt accumulation, and a lack of snow cover.

Research conducted with airborne instruments shows the presence of salty, unfrozen groundwater in the bitterly cold rocks below the Antarctic surface. A new study detailing the findings suggests deep conduits for brine could exist throughout the Wright Valley in Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys, potentially connecting two of Earth’s saltiest bodies of water.

These coves, peaks, glaciers and other landmarks honor female explorers and scientists who have contributed to our understanding of the continent

The space-for-time substitution approach provides a valuable empirical assessment to infer temporal effects of disturbance from spatial gradients. Applied to predict the response of different ecosystems under current climate change scenarios, it remains poorly tested in microbial ecology studies, partly due to the trophic complexity of the ecosystems studied. The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica represent a trophically simple polar desert projected to experience drastic changes in water availab...

February 18, 2021 Researchers at the SETI Institute say that mysterious dark streaks on sun-facing slopes on Mars, debated about for years, may be small landslides caused by a combination of salts and melting ice just below the surface. A sample of Mars analog crust (imitation Martian soil) containing sulfate salts (blue and pink). The new study suggests that such salts and melting ice just below the surface on Mars could cause the enigmatic dark streaks on sun-facing slopes. Image via Janice B...

Zack Burton ’14 Coauthors Paper on an Enduring Mars Enigma With a team of astrobiologists, Zack Burton ’14 has discovered that underneath the dry, barren landscape of Mars, ice could be melting and mixing with underground salts to cause surface landslides. Zach Burton in the lab with collaborator Merve Yesilbas, where they performed experiments for the Mars study.  The biggest clues for the team that Mars might contain secret stores of briny water were these mysterious landsli...

RSL). SETI Institute senior research scientist and member of the NASA Astrobiology Institute team, alternatively hypothesizes that small-scale ice melting underground causes changes that make the surface vulnerable to dust storms and wind. As a result, the features appear or expand on the surface of Mars. Further, the team believes that the thin layers of melting ice result from interactions between underground water ice, chlorine salts and sulfates, which create an unstable, liquid-like flowi...

Landslides on Mars during the summer months may be caused by underground salts and melting ice, a new study claims.  Using imitation Martian soil samples, SETI Institute researchers in the US recreated Martian landslides on a miniature scale in the lab. The frozen, salty and chlorine-laden samples were thawed under temperatures intended to replicate a Martian summer, resulting in slush and liquid water.    On Mars, melting ice in regolith – the dusty blanket of sediment on the planets sur...

Martian landslides may be caused by melting ice and salt under the surface Mars may seem like a still, frozen desert, but more evidence suggests that the red planet is active in subtle ways. The NASA InSight mission has helped researchers determine that the planet experiences Marsquakes, making it seismically active. And then there is the mystery of Recurring Slope Lineae, known as RSL, that have intrigued scientists for years. These RSL are a form of landslide on Mars, but no one knows what ca...