Published

Credit: Tracey Jones, Antarctica NZ Pictorial Collection: K024C 07/08

Credit: Tracey Jones, Antarctica NZ Pictorial Collection: K024C 07/08

In the austral summer, the shallow margins of ice-covered lakes melt, forming moats around the permanent ice covers of the lakes. Waters here interact with streams, soils, and the atmosphere (unlike those under the permanent ice). Recent study of these moats has uncovered these as the locations of the highest biomass per unit area in the dry valleys landscape.

Learn more

  1. Hall et al. (2017) Constraining the recent history of the perennially ice-covered Lake Bonney, East Antarctica using He, Kr and Xe concentrations. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2017.04.023
  2. Doran et al (2014), Radiocarbon distribution and the effect of legacy in lakes of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, Limnology and Oceanography, 59, doi: 10.4319/lo.2014.59.3.0811.

Contact

Michael Gooseff
michael.gooseff@colorado.edu

Posted:  July 10, 2020