Exploration of Antarctic Subglacial Aquatic Environments: Environmental and Scientific Stewardship
Abstract
Antarctica is renowned for its extreme cold; yet surprisingly, there is liquid water at the base of the Antarctic ice sheet several kilometers beneath the surface. The exploration of these subglacial aquatic environments is in its initial stages, and many fundamental questions about these environments can only be answered by entering and sampling the water. Accordingly, the management of subglacial aquatic environments requires responsible environmental stewardship while allowing field research. As of early 2007, no one has yet drilled into a lake but entry within the next one or two years is likely. Thus, the challenge is to determine the best way of drilling into, extensively sampling, and monitoring these environments. While general guidelines for research in Antarctica are provided in the Antarctic Treaty, currently no clear protocols or standards for minimizing contamination have been established. At the request of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Research Council convened a committee to develop a set of environmental and scientific protection standards needed to responsibly explore the subglacial lake environments in Antarctica. Specifically, the committee was asked to define levels of cleanliness for equipment or devices entering subglacial aquatic environments, develop a sound scientific basis for contamination standards, and recommend the next steps needed to define an overall exploration strategy. This talk will present the findings of that committee. The committee included U.S. and international scientists, and gathered information from the global scientific community. Although a U.S. scientific advisory body produced this study, the committee hopes that its multinational makeup will be recognized and that the recommendations in this report will serve as a basis for broad international discussion about environmental stewardship for the exploration of subglacial aquatic environments.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2007
- Bibcode:
- 2007AGUFM.U23B..06W
- Keywords:
-
- 0726 Ice sheets;
- 0776 Glaciology (1621;
- 1827;
- 1863);
- 0793 Biogeochemistry (0412;
- 0414;
- 1615;
- 4805;
- 4912);
- 0799 General or miscellaneous