Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbomb. Here above ground Antarctica appears barren and sterile,
Speaker 1: but tucked within warm pockets of volcanic ice caves, diverse
Speaker 1: plant and animal life may flourish. A steam and gas
Speaker 1: spewed by active volcanoes in eastern Antarcca, one being Mount
Speaker 1: Ebarus on Ross Island, and three more in nearby Victoria
Speaker 1: Land have carved out heated oases in ice domes, towers,
Speaker 1: and cave systems. Before the article. This episode is based
Speaker 1: on How Stuff Works. Spoke via email with Carodwin Fraser
Speaker 1: from Australian National University's Fenner School of Environment in Society,
Speaker 1: who's done research in the area. She said the caves
Speaker 1: are covered with ice and there's ice all around, but
Speaker 1: some are as warm as a summer's day, over twenty
Speaker 1: degrees celsius or sixty eight fahrenheit. In most it's pretty
Speaker 1: dark as not much light gets through the thick ice,
Speaker 1: but in others where ice covers thin light can filter through.
Speaker 1: In these caves, Fraser's research team collected soil samples that
Speaker 1: have yielded the DNA of dozens of plant and animal species.
Speaker 1: Most of the DNA collected from the caves match with
Speaker 1: species of say, moss, algae, and nemotodes already detected at
Speaker 1: other sites on the continent, but the team also identified
Speaker 1: genetics of life that may be unique to the unusual
Speaker 1: environment of these volcanic ice caves. Fraser said there were
Speaker 1: some sequences that didn't make a close match to DNA
Speaker 1: and online databases, which makes me wonder if there might
Speaker 1: be species that are specially adapted to the caves and
Speaker 1: found nowhere else. It opens up the doors to some
Speaker 1: exciting discoveries about biodiversity in Antarctica. While the DNA captured
Speaker 1: from the volcanic areas did not conclusively prove that the
Speaker 1: sites host living forms of these plants and animals, the
Speaker 1: samples none the wls leus offer a tantalizing glimpse into
Speaker 1: what forms of life could live there. The researcher's next
Speaker 1: step will be to find direct evidence, namely the life
Speaker 1: itself in samples. Getting samples from the Antarctic volcanic sites
Speaker 1: is no easy task. Once the researchers reached the continent,
Speaker 1: they were flown by helicopter part way up Mount arabis.
Speaker 1: They stayed in tents at least two nights to acclimate
Speaker 1: to the higher elevations, and from there they either hiked
Speaker 1: or snowmobiled to the ice cave hollows. At one point,
Speaker 1: the researchers were forced to ride out a blizzard and
Speaker 1: spent four long days stuck in their tents as wind
Speaker 1: and snow howled outside. Conditions were too harsh to leave
Speaker 1: the tents to even access their food stash. Hostiff Works
Speaker 1: also spoke with Lori Connell, a researcher in molecular and
Speaker 1: biomedical sciences at the University of Maine and a co
Speaker 1: author of the study that led the team to the
Speaker 1: geothermal sites. She said, it was over things Giving, so
Speaker 1: we decided to save our remaining dry soup mix and
Speaker 1: crackers for Thanksgiving Day. When we woke up on Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: for our feast and made our soup, we realized our
Speaker 1: hot water was no longer hot, just tepid. It was
Speaker 1: pretty pathetic. Once the researchers managed to reach the field
Speaker 1: station at the volcano, where temperatures away from the geothermal
Speaker 1: sites reached minus thirty degrees fahrenheit, which is minus thirty
Speaker 1: four celsius The team fanned out to various sites and
Speaker 1: used ropes and harnesses to access a range of geothermal features.
Speaker 1: Those included areas of soil that were heated from the
Speaker 1: volcanic activity but still exposed. There were also ice hummocks,
Speaker 1: which are domes of unstable ice covering a heat spewing
Speaker 1: volcanic vent, and then ice towers and caves that presented
Speaker 1: intricate labyrinths of icy underworlds. Among the identified DNA were
Speaker 1: covered at the volcanic sites, the closest match the scientists
Speaker 1: could are arthropods. This category of animals features external shells
Speaker 1: and jointed limbs and includes over a million known species,
Speaker 1: ranging from lobsters to centipedes to microscopic copapods. Arthropods have
Speaker 1: been found elsewhere on Antarctica, including on patches of exposed
Speaker 1: ground that make up the mere zero point three percent
Speaker 1: or less of the continent that's not covered with ice.
Speaker 1: In these regions, life has to contend with not only
Speaker 1: extreme cold, but also extreme dryness. Even though much of
Speaker 1: the continent is coated in ice that's up to three
Speaker 1: miles or five kilometers, thickened parts and Arctica's inner regions
Speaker 1: receive an average of only two inches that's five centimeters
Speaker 1: of precipitation, primarily snow every year. Parts of the continent
Speaker 1: do thaw for weeks or months at a time during
Speaker 1: the summer, but in other areas that water is locked
Speaker 1: in its frozen form year round. But despite the harsh
Speaker 1: conditions that away from its coast, Antarctica hosts vast biomes
Speaker 1: under the ice that scientists are now exploring. Fraser said,
Speaker 1: we think of Antarctica as a wasteland, but even in
Speaker 1: that extreme environment, life thrives in amazing places on rocks,
Speaker 1: on top of mountains, in the lower layers of sea ice,
Speaker 1: in dry deserts. Why not also in these warm, hospitable
Speaker 1: caves hollowed out by steam between the ice and the rock.
Speaker 1: In East Antarctica, Lake Vostok is buried under two and
Speaker 1: a half miles of ice that's about four kilometers and
Speaker 1: hasn't been near open air for some fifteen million years.
Speaker 1: Samples taken from the lake in an unrelated study yielded
Speaker 1: genetic sequences for three thousand, five hundred and seven recognizable species,
Speaker 1: as well as about ten thousand species not yet known
Speaker 1: to science. The scientists have also found hardy forms of
Speaker 1: bacteria within networks of salty liquid water discovered at Antarctica's
Speaker 1: McMurdo Dry Alleys, which features striking, blood red falls of
Speaker 1: iron rich glacial melt that never find their way to
Speaker 1: the sea. However, as scientists must be mindful of whether
Speaker 1: the DNA they find at these extreme Antarctic sites represents
Speaker 1: life that truly exists there or organisms that were transported
Speaker 1: in and persisted only temporarily. Tiny tough microbes and spores
Speaker 1: could come in on the wind, or via accidental contamination
Speaker 1: from researchers clothing and other gear. Evidence of this type
Speaker 1: of contamination has been found. Fraser's team collected fragments of
Speaker 1: ash trees that likely come from Robert Falcon Scott's exploration
Speaker 1: of Mount Arabis from nineteen twelve. Still, the DNA discoveries
Speaker 1: at Mount Arabis may only represent a fraction of diverse
Speaker 1: life housed within its volcanic ice caves. Antarctica is home
Speaker 1: to more than one hundred volcanoes, each of which may
Speaker 1: host its own network of ice caves and tunnels. We
Speaker 1: don't know how many caves exist and how connected they
Speaker 1: are to each other, because, again, Antarctica is difficult to
Speaker 1: get to and explore, but there are even more challenging
Speaker 1: places out there. Many scientists believe that understanding the life
Speaker 1: and subsurface environs and the harsh climate of Antarctica could
Speaker 1: lend clues to possible life on places and even more
Speaker 1: extreme locations like Mars or Europa. Fraser said, this research
Speaker 1: and other research indicates that volcanic activity can foster life
Speaker 1: in extreme conditions, and yes, there is the potential that
Speaker 1: around volcanoes on other planets and moons we might find
Speaker 1: life even when exposed atmospheric conditions are harsh. NASA does
Speaker 1: take great effort to ensure that robots sent to other
Speaker 1: bodies in our Solar System aren't contaminated with traces of
Speaker 1: life from Earth. Such traces could throw off results from
Speaker 1: any sampling performed. Of course, a distinguishing native DNA from
Speaker 1: contaminating DNA and samples from Antarctica is easier since the
Speaker 1: location in question is already here on Earth. Connell explained
Speaker 1: that researchers are able to take direct samples and can
Speaker 1: then perform culture tests to determine whether life is still
Speaker 1: active at the geothermal locations, but she and her colleagues
Speaker 1: have been performing these kinds of tests, and the planned
Speaker 1: to publish results soon. Today's episode is based on the
Speaker 1: article Intricate ice caves in Antarctica may harbor unique life
Speaker 1: on how Stuffworks dot Com. Written by Amanda Onion. The
Speaker 1: brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with
Speaker 1: how Stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang.
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