If “soil scientist” sounds like just about the least interesting career you can imagine
If “soil scientist” sounds like just about the least interesting career you can imagine having, you might want to think again. Yesterday I spent the day with two Antarctic soil scientists, being helicoptered all around the mountains of Antarctica, perching on various cliffs while they jumped out to collect soil samples. Although these glacial valleys may look barren of all life to our human eye, in fact billions of different microbe populations are thriving in the soils. Scientists want to know how these microbes survive in this brutal cold and with so few nutrients; we humans were lucky enough to have our Big Red parkas and bags of gorp, so we survived just fine, ourselves! -- source link
#dry valleys#taylor glacier#antarctica#geologist#soil scientist#helicopter#a star#glacier#glacial valley