The last field day

The flags that marked our field site.

Monday was our last field collection day. I'm in the lab now, at 10 pm on Tuesday, filtering the melted snow that is my last sample from Antarctica. The rest of the week before we leave will be filled with packing and cleaning, which sounds trivial, but will probably take every spare minute of each day left. The sea ice has changed over our weeks here: the ice has gotten warmer and wetter (shifting from phase I to phase II) and there are more bare patches of ice where the snow has melted away. In a few months, the ice will be gone and our field site will be open water.

Our lady-ice-bug and snowmobiles on the sea ice.

To mark the end of the collection of my multi-omics samples, Adela snapped a picture of me in my NMDC (microbiomedata.org) sweatshirt on my trusty snowmobile. I have been collecting samples for metagenomics and metaproteomics. The "meta" means that we are looking at a community (specifically, the bacterial community in the sea ice and snow). The metagenomics data will represent all the genes of all the bacteria in each sample and will tell us which bacteria are present and what their biological potential is. The metaproteomics data will represent all the proteins expressed by these bacteria and will tell us what their metabolic priorities are, which gives us insight into their interactions with their environment.

This evening is special not only because it marks the end of my field samples, but also because it really snowed tonight! We haven't had a good snow since we've been here, just a few days when there were small flurries. The air in Antarctica is usually too cold to hold water vapor, so there is very little precipitation here. But I guess with the changing season and warmer air, snow is possible!

Last, but not least, this looooong day was made possible by our friendly firefighter barista, Dom, who made me an amazing powdered milk latte this morning. Thanks, Dominic!