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Twin Otter flies over the ice of Antarctica during a previous field season. A similar aircraft outfitted with unique radars will fly Ian Joughin and members of his team over West Antarctica later this year.
Twin Otter flies over the ice of Antarctica during a previous field season. A similar aircraft outfitted with unique radars will fly Ian Joughin and members of his team over West Antarctica later this year.

Researchers explore the Mount Howe area in the Transantarctic Mountains during a previous field season. The blue ice area is similar to an ice type that likely existed during Snowball Earth events, a time of severe glaciation in the distant past. Snowball Earth
Stephen Warren has made eight previous trips to Antarctica to study its climate. But on his ninth visit to the frozen continent later this year, the University of Washington professor will use Antarctic ice to learn more about the planet's climate hundreds of millions of years ago during a time of extreme glaciation called Snowball Earth.

An emperor colony located near Britain's Halley Research Station. Using a satellite mosaic map created during the International Polar Year that was partly funded by the National Science Foundation, British scientists identified 10 new colonies. The Poop on Penguins
Penguin guano stains, visible from space, have helped British scientists locate emperor penguin breeding colonies in Antarctica. For the survey, the researchers used satellite images downloaded from the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA), a project partly funded by the National Science Foundation.

Sandwich Bluff on Vega Island, northern Antarctic Peninsula, where the Vegavis specimen and many other late Cretaceous, Antarctic bird specimens, have been recovered. The specimens here range in age from 70 to 67.5 million years ago. Antarctic Bird Nest?
The previous discovery of a new bird species related to ducks and geese on an island off the Antarctic Peninsula has encouraged scientists to look more closely at the fossils collected from the region over the last 20 years. They believe modern birds may have originated in Antarctica more than 65 million years ago when dinosaurs still stalked the Earth.

A Zodiac inflatable boat passes close to an iceberg near the Antarctic Peninsula in West Antarctica. A new study says total ice loss from West Antarctica will be less than previously calculated, meaning sea level would rise by about half of earlier projections. Sea Level Rise Revised
A new study in the journal Science challenges the long-held idea that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would raise sea level by as much as five or six meters if it were to collapse. Instead, the authors contend the ice would increase sea level by about half of previous estimates.

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Site Curator: Peter Rejcek, Raytheon Polar Services | NSF Official: Winifred Reuning, OPP | Last Updated: 10/26/2007
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