This year 77 women took part in the largest all-female expedition to Antarctica as part of a leadership training program. Rough weather enroute put group decision-making skills to the test.
A life-like reconstruction of Llanocetus denticrenatus, the second oldest “baleen” whale ever found.
Carl Buell
Baleen whales are some of the least likely mammals, supporting their massive bodies by filtering tiny prey. New evidence from an ancient fossil sheds new light on how baleen evolved.
An international team has melted a hole through Antarctica’s largest ice shelf to explore the hidden ocean below, and the shelf’s vulnerability to climate change.
The continent is home to 12 million penguins…and not much else.
Andrew Peacock, footloosefotography.com
Australia is among nations calling for a 1 million square km marine park off East Antarctica. But Russia and China remain opposed, and a recent summit yet again failed to seal the deal.
Notes unearthed from the British Library suggest that Captain Scott’s Antarctic expedition may have been fatally undermined by Lieutenant Teddy Evans, furious after being sent back to base.
Clouds over Australia’s Davis Research Station, containing ice particles that activate ozone-depleting chemicals, triggering the annual ozone hole.
Barry Becker/BOM/AAD
The treaty to limit the destruction of the ozone layer is hailed as the most successful environmental agreement of all time. Three decades on, the ozone layer is slowly but surely returning to health.
Melting Antarctic ice can trigger effects on the other side of the globe.
NASA/Jane Peterson
The climate secrets contained in an ancient tree that lived through abrupt global change reveal how Antarctica can trigger rapid warming in the north by dumping cold water into the Southern Ocean.
Mosses are sensitive to even minor changes in their living conditions.
Sharon Robinson
Mosses are sensitive to even minor changes in their living conditions, and scientists traditionally tramped through difficult terrain to collect data on them.
The Mt. Takeha volcano in west Antartica rises more than 2,000 metres above the surrounding ice sheet.
Wikimedia commons
More than 100 volcanoes lie beneath the continent’s ice sheet.
The analysis of large amounts of ice from Antarctica’s Taylor Valley has helped scientists to tease apart the natural and human-made sources of the potent greenhouse gas methane.
Hinrich Schaefer
Fruit cake may last a century, but it’s got nothing on honey.
The authors have collaborated on an Antarctic research project, investigating tiny ice crystals and their role in climate.
Gabby O'Connor's Studio Antarctica/Johanna Mechem
Distinguished Professor and Deputy Director of ARC Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future (SAEF), University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong