Dry Valleys research and PCAS

Yesterday my boss Bryan and I did a tag-team lecture on our work on the Dry Valleys for this years Gateway Post-graduate certificate in Antarctic studies (PCAS). Its a cool course that gets together a bunch of Antarctic mad students to learn about the continent and have a week on the ice (care of Antarctica NZ). Obviously getting cold, eating 5 year old bumper bars and learning to piss in a bottle are the high points of the course!

Edumacation

Our talk was an introduction to the landscape evolution of the dry valleys and how they are/have been impacted by humans since their discovery by Scott in the early 1900s. While we know far more about the environment, and how they are both different and similar to other desert environments (both hot and cold), the role of human activity in the face of climate change still leaves unanswered questions.

Boot print on the Moon (July 20, 1969). Given the lack of any atmosphere, no wind and no water means that this will last indefinitely  unless it erodes (weathers) mechanically by thermal stress or micrometeorite/meteoroid impact.

I posed the question of "How long does a footprint last" using Neil Armstrongs boot print on the moon and a number of closer examples to point out time scales. Neils footprint is only 46 years old and the hominid footprints in Tanzania are 3.7 million years old, but given the differing environments, the moon print might outlast mankind!

Hominid foot prints in a 3.7 million year old sediment in the Olduvai Valley Tanzania.

Heres a link to the PDF if you are interested in some of this stuff. Ill probably be talking/complaining about some of the topics later on.