ACE terrestrial biodiversity program Written by Ian Hogg, University of Waikato Photos: Ian Hogg & Noé Sardet The largest year-round animals to inhabit the Antarctic continent are springtails (primitive insect-like arthropods) and mites – all less than 1.5 mm. The also share the continent with other smaller invertebrate animals including […]

By Eric Hoesli, EPFL professor Par Eric Hoesli, professeur à l’EPFL What’s his passion? Mushrooms. Not what you’d expect from a sailor. Valeri Mikhailovitch  Chelukhov knows of a secret spot, a little island in the wetlands south of Arkhangelsk that takes a two-hour train ride and four-hour walk to reach […]

By Christian de Marliave, ACE expedition head of logistics/directeur logistique de l’expédition ACE. Great-circle navigation refers to the shortest distance between two points on the globe. Since we’re sailing on a sphere, this is rarely a straight line. The shortest distance between Scott Island and Peter I Island runs near […]

By Eric Hoesli, EPFL professor Par Eric Hoesli, professeur à l’EPFL From the ship’s bridge, he can be heard quickly climbing the steps. Everyone is at their post when the captain arrives. Dmitri Karpenko – who is deferentially referred to on board by his patronymic, Dmitri Alexandrovich – occupies the […]

Bastien Confino (RTS) spoke with Guillaume Massé, a geochemist at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Université Laval in Quebec. Photos by Noé Sardet (Parafilms, EPFL). French below… – Now that we are nearing this Glacier, a place you know well. How do you feel? Even when […]

by Noé Sardet, Parafilms, EPFL Par Noé Sardet, Parafilms, EPFL The first dive beneath the Mertz Glacier was a real challenge. Getting under the glacier would be more difficult than expected. A huge underwater ice cavern stretches below the glacier’s tongue. The whole team was surprised to discover this massive […]

After the Mertz stopover, ACE expedition reached the Balleny archipelago, a serie of uninhabited volcanic islands. Realizing that their is no good map of the Balleny Islands, David Walton proposed a new mission for ACE: Create a topographic map of the islands Young Buckle and Sabrina. Therefore, the media team […]

By Christel Hassler, Professor of marine and lake biogeochemistry, University of Geneva. Principal investigator, ACE project “Biodiversity and isolation of bacteria and viruses in contrasted regions from the Southern Ocean”.     During this second leg, oceanographers have sampled highly contrasted water ranging from highly productive polynya waters in the […]

By Eric Hoesli, EPFL professor Par Eric Hoesli, professeur à l’EPFL On board, it’s difficult not to notice Kristina, one of the young members of the Russian crew. She’s covered from head to toe in tattoos. Only her face, with its fine features and her large, delicately outlined eyes, shows […]