This book draws together current knowledge on Antarctic lakes describing the formation, chemistry, biology and ecology of these pristine, delicate aquatic environments.

The Antarctic continent carries the greatest diversity of lake environments on the planet: freshwater and saline lakes, tidal freshwater epishelf lakes, lakes on ice shelves and glacier surfaces, and over three hundred subglacial lakes; extraordinary ecosystems that have been separated from the atmosphere for up to millions of years. This book provides a unique and cutting edge synthesis of Antarctic limnology, drawing together current knowledge on geomorphology, morphometry, chemistry, community structure and function. It emphasises throughout the value of these near-pristine ecosystems as barometers of climate change, showing how responsive and vulnerable they are to the indirect impacts of anthropogenic activity. Antarctic Lakes begins with an introduction to their physical, chemical, and biological characteristics, providing a basis for understanding the subsequent detailed chapters on different lake types, and ends with a chapter considering the application of new technologies to polar limnology as well as identifying future research directions. This accessible text is suitable for both senior undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in Antarctic and polar limnology, and will also be of broad interest to researchers working in the areas of polar science, microbial ecology (and extremophiles), climatology, glaciology, and astrobiology.

Concerns about the effects of global climate change have focused attention on the vulnerability of circumpolar regions. This book offers a synthesis of the spectrum of techniques available for generating long-term environmental records from circumpolar lakes.

This book provides an overview of the ecology of high latitude lakes, rivers and glacial environments in both the North and South polar regions. It describes each ecosystem type, the remarkable aquatic life that thrives in these extreme habitats, and the similarities and differences between Arctic and Antarctic waters.

John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Book PEN/Martha Albrand Award Finalist “[Green’s] prose rings with the elemental clarity of the ice he knows so well.” —PEN Awards Committee citation A classic of contemporary nature writing, the award-winning Water, Ice & Stone is both a scientific and poetic journey into Antarctica, addressing the ecological importance of the continent within the context of climate change. Bill Green has been traveling to this remote and primordial place at the bottom of the Earth since 1968. With this book he focuses on the McMurdo Dry Valleys—an area that is deceptively timeless as a stark landscape of rock and ice. Here, Green delves into the geochemistry of the region and discovers a wealth of data, which vividly speaks to the health and climate of the larger world. Bill Green is a geochemist and professor emeritus at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He first traveled to Antarctica in 1968 and began conducting research there in 1980. He is also the author of Boltzmann’s Tomb: Travels in Search of Science.

The first book on the subject, this monograph examines the phenomenon of a huge sealed, freshwater lake, isolated from the rest of the world by kilometers' thick ice. The existence of melting ice at the bottom of the huge Vostok Lake has served as a model and inspired the team planning the Galileo space craft to gather data on the ice sheet of the Jupiterian moon Europa. The book provides interpretation of, and calculations for, stimulating factors for possible melting and a huge lake's existence at the bottom of the Martian ice sheets.

Publisher description

This collection of 10 papers presents the complex relationships between climate and lake levels, the role of permanent ice covers in regulating lake ecology and sedimentation patterns, the character and function of microbial communities, the nature and distribution of dissolved organic matter and the origin of brine composition, in lakes of the Antarctic continent.

Antarctica is renowned for its extreme cold; yet surprisingly, radar measurements have revealed a vast network of lakes, rivers, and streams several kilometers beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. Sealed from Earth's atmosphere for millions of years, they may provide vital information about microbial evolution, the past climate of the Antarctic, and the formation of ice sheets, among other things. The next stage of exploration requires direct sampling of these aquatic systems. However, if sampling is not done cautiously, the environmental integrity and scientific value of these environments could be compromised. At the request of the National Science Foundation, this National Research Council assesses what is needed to responsibly explore subglacial lakes. Exploration of Antarctic Subglacial Aquatic Environments concludes that it is time for research on subglacial lakes to begin, and this research should be guided by internationally agreed upon protocols. The book suggests an initial protocol, which includes full characterization of the lakes by remote sensing, and minimum standards for biological and other types of contamination.

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 192. Antarctic Subglacial Aquatic Environments is the first volume on this important and fascinating subject. With its underlying theme of bridging existing knowledge to future research, it is a benchmark in the history of subglacial lake exploration and study, containing up-to-date discussions about the history and background of subglacial aquatic environments and future exploration. The main topics addressed are identification, location, physiography, and hydrology of 387 subglacial lakes; protocols for environmental stewardship and protection of subglacial lake environments; details of three programs aiming to explore Vostok Subglacial Lake, Ellsworth Subglacial Lake, and Whillans Subglacial Lake over the next 3–5 years; assessment of technological requirements for exploration programs based on best practices for environmental stewardship and scientific success; and knowledge of subglacial lakes as habitats for microbial life and as recorders of past climate and ice sheet change. Its uniqueness, breadth, and inclusiveness will appeal to microbiologists and those interested in life in extreme environments, paleoclimatologists and those interested in sedimentary records of past changes, glaciologists striving to understand how water beneath glaciers affects their flow, and those engaged in developing technology to undertake direct measurement and sampling of extreme environments on Earth and in the solar system.