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LTER Beacon Valley field camp in the Dry Valleys
Beacon Valley field camp, located in the Dry Valleys of the Transantarctic Mountains, where researchers are studying landscape features and soils to provide a more complete understanding of past global climatic and environmental conditions.
More about this image
The McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-term Ecological Research project, funded by the National Science Foundation's LTER program, is a study into the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems in a cold desert region of Antarctica. The project seeks to understand the influence of physical and biological constraints on the structure and function of dry valley ecosystems and to understand the modifying effects of material transport on these ecosystems.
The Dry Valleys are located on the western coast of McMurdo Sound and form the largest, relatively ice-free area (approximately 4800 square kilometers) on the Antarctic continent. They are dominated by microorganisms, mosses and lichens; higher forms of life are virtually nonexistent.
This research is important because it exists at one end of the arid and cold spectra of terrestrial ecosystems. All ecosystems are dependent on liquid water and are shaped to varying degrees by climate and material transport but nowhere is this more apparent than in the Dry Valleys. In very few places on Earth are there environments where minor changes in climate so dramatically affect the capabilities of organisms to grow and reproduce. Data being collected by the LTER indicate that the dry valleys are very sensitive to small variations in solar radiation and temperature, and the site may be an important natural, regional-scale laboratory for studying responses to human alterations of climate. While the Antarctic ice sheets respond to climate change on the order of thousands of years, the glaciers, streams and ice-covered lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys respond to change almost immediately, making these areas an ideal location for climate change research.
This LTER has successfully completed eight field seasons (October-February) since 1993. During the 1993-94 season, 18 scientists were deployed to McMurdo Station and Taylor Valley to conduct research associated with the LTER project. These scientists initiated core measurement programs to obtain baseline, ecologically relevant data from the atmosphere, glaciers, streams, soils and lakes. Since then, about 25 scientists each season have participated. (Year of image: 2001)
Credit: Photograph by Josh Landis, National Science Foundation
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