As we prepare for more cold weather this weekend, let's take a look back at Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914 voyage to the Antarctic. Just one day's sail from the continent, his ship Endurance became trapped in sea ice. Frozen fast for 10 months, the ship was crushed and destroyed by ice pressure, and the crew was forced to abandon it. After camping on the ice for five months, Shackleton made two open boat journeys, one of which—a treacherous 800-mile ocean crossing to South Georgia Island—is now considered one of the greatest boat journeys in history. Trekking across the mountains of South Georgia, Shackleton reached the island's remote whaling station, organized a rescue team, and saved all of the men he had left behind.

In the early months of 2016, Museum Curators Jin Meng and Ross MacPhee, as well as Ph.D.-degree student Abagael West, visited the James Ross Island Group in Antarctica as part of the Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project (AP3), and international fossil-finding expedition. AP3 teams spent several weeks divided among field camps at four separate sites, with short trips to other locations by helicopter and Zodiac motorboat.

The glamour of island-hopping by helicopter didn’t diminish the grueling work of finding fossils, a down and dirty exercise pursued on all fours while searching through frigid, densely packed mud, sand, and gravel. Read more about the expedition on our blog. 

This Fossil Friday, learn about a fossil hunt at the bottom of the world.

Home to penguins, particularly hardy mosses, and the occasional seal paying a visit to dry land, Antarctica is a unique and uniquely harsh environment. Snow and ice cover 98 percent of the landmass, and with wind chill, temperatures in the center of the continent can plunge to 100 degrees below zero.

But it wasn’t always this way. Tens of millions of years ago, Antarctica was the heart of the supercontinent known as Gondwana, pressed between would-be South American and Australian continents at first and then likely joined to each by land bridges for millions of years after they started to drift apart. Though it was still at Earth’s southern pole, Antarctica was then much warmer. And, as fossils recovered there show, the continent was home to a diverse group of vertebrates, including non-avian dinosaurs and, later, during the Eocene period about 45 million years ago, mammals.

Paleontologists think the continent still has more fossils to yield—remnants which could show the dinosaurs that roamed there 65 million years ago shared the continent with even more ancient mammals. In February, Abagael West, a graduate student who studies South American mammals at Columbia University in a collaborative program with the Museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School (RGGS), joined Museum Curators Ross MacPhee and Jin Meng as they headed south on a seven-week expedition in search of the evidence.

Read the full story on the Museum blog. 

Plan a trip to the Museum to see Beneath the Ice: An Immersive Dome Installation, on now through May 27, 2016. 

Take a deep dive into Antarctic waters to explore a hidden world beneath the ice. Once thought to be low in species diversity, the Antarctic is now known to be home to a rich variety of life. This immersive dome experience showcases a surprising and visually stunning array of marine life that flourishes on, around, and underneath the Antarctic ice. 

This installation is free for Members or with Museum admission! Learn more. 

AMNH/D.Finnin

What is Antarctica?

Antarctica is Earth’s southernmost continent. About the size of the United States and Mexico combined, it is almost entirely covered by a thick ice sheet that gives an average elevation of 8,200 ft (2,500 m), the highest of any continent. This ice sheet contains 90 percent of the planet’s land ice, which represents 70 percent of the Earth’s fresh water. 

Antarctica is the coldest place on Earth, and an encircling polar ocean current keeps it that way. Winds can reach over 200 miles per hour (320 kph), making it the windiest continent. And since most of Antarctica receives no precipitation at all, it’s also the driest place on Earth. Its landforms include high plateaus and active volcanoes. Although most life is concentrated on the shoreline and in surrounding waters, microbes thrive in unexpected places like dry valleys and ice- capped brine lakes.

How has Antarctica changed over time?

Fossils, rocks, and ice cores reveal that Antarctica was once very different. Until around 30 million years ago, temperate conditions supported a completely different and diverse group of plants and animals. Today, the harsh environment is home to a variety of microbial life, penguins, seals, seabirds, marine life, and tundra-like vegetation—all of which have specialized characteristics that enable them to live there. These traits include fur- and physiological adaptations such as the “antifreeze” molecules in the blood of certain fish.

Why is Antarctica important today?

Known as “the continent of science,” this vast natural laboratory is protected from military and commercial use by the Antarctic Treaty. Ice cores contain a record of how the ice sheets formed and moved, and how climate changed in the past. The lack of pollution in the atmosphere at the bottom of the world is superb for astronomy. Fossil finds help paleontologists chart the biogeography of the Southern Hemisphere, and support the theory of continental drift. Biologists are finding organisms that illuminate the history of life. Antarctica’s unique conditions make these explorations possible.

Learn much more about Antarctica in Beneath the Ice, and immersive dome installation now on view in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, running through May 27.  

Happy World Penguin Day! 

Penguins are some of the most common birds in the Antarctic. They live in colonies of tens or even hundreds of thousands of birds and survive in the harshest of conditions—it is no wonder that penguins are a symbol of Antarctica. Only four of the 17 known species of penguins breed on the Antarctic continent itself: Adelie, Emperor, Chinstrap, and Gentoo Penguins. Most other species live in other regions, ranging from subantarctic to tropical. 

Early Antarctic explorers initially thought penguins were feathered fish because they were flightless, and superbly adapted to their marine environment. Penguins manuever underwater with great skill, and have massive pectoral muscles to propel them at speeds up to 25 miles per hour. To withstand the harsh conditions of the Antarctic, their bodies are insulated by a thick layer of blubber and a dense network of waterproof plumage.

See footage of Antarctic penguins in the immersive dome installation, Beneath the Ice, now playing in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, free for Members or with Museum Admission. Learn more. 

Image: Diorama in traveling exhibition, Race to the End of the Earth, D.Finnin

Seals and fur seals are one of the few groups of marine mammals that live in the Antarctic. There are two families of seals, true (earless) seals and fur seals which have external ears and are more closely related to sea lions. Seals spend much of their time under the sea ice in Antarctica, as there are many times in midwinter when the sea water is warmer than the air. No matter how cold the air temperature is, the temperature of the sea is relatively constant, varying from only 29 to 34ºF (-1.8 to 1ºC) around much of the Antarctic. Most seals catch all of their prey under water, but spend time on land or on ice floes giving birth, raising their young, and basking in the sun. On land they appear quite clumsy, but in the water they are graceful and skilled swimmers. Seals are well adapted to cold polar environments with thick blubber layers that act both as an energy reserve and as insulation.

Learn more about the diversity of life in Antarctica with Beneath the Ice: An Immersive Dome Installation, part of the Milstein Science Series, on view now at the Museum, free for members or with Museum admission. Learn more.

Image: Wikipedia

Spend Sunday in Antarctica! 

The Milstein Science Series brings visitors to Antarctica to learn about amazing creatures, new discoveries, and the world beneath the ice. Meet live penguins, try hands-on activities, and experience dynamic performances in this family-friendly science festival, free for Members or with Museum admission.

Learn more about this event. 

Antarctica is the coldest and windiest place on Earth and there’s so much to learn about new discoveries of amazing creatures and the unique geology beneath the ice. 

This Sunday, April 10 from 11 am to 4 pm, the Museum is hosting Wild Antarctica, part of the Milstein Science Series. Meet live penguins, try hands-on activities, and experience dynamic performances in this family-friendly science festival.

Here are a few of Sunday’s events: 

Meet the Experts Noon and 2:30 pm Join scientists Daniel Costa, Sandra Passchier, Ross Powell, and Estefanía Rodríguez as they discuss their research on seals, new marine discoveries, and the unique geology beneath the ice. Q&A moderated by curator and host Mark Siddall to follow.

Live Penguins 1:30 pm and 3:30 pm Meet live penguins, the most common birds in the Antarctic, with Jarod Miller, host of Animal Planet’s “Pet Finder.”

Polar Performances 2 pm and 4 pm The Arctic and Antarctic may appear similar on the surface, but very different types of animals call these icy regions home. Explore these polar opposites in an interactive presentation with the Central Park Zoo Performance Theater.

Learn more about this event, free for Members or with Museum admission. 

On International Women’s Day, we’re giving a special shout-out to a few of the Museum scientists currently out on expeditions.

It’s field season in Antarctica, and several research teams from the Museum are on the ground—and in the water. Associate Curator Estefanía Rodríguez is doing fieldwork off the coast of Antarctica, studying the fascinating varieties of anemones and other sea life in the frigid seas at the bottom of the world. Her studies of sea anemones resulted in a discovery of an entirely new order of life in 2014, which she recently discussed at the January SciCafe.

Meanwhile, on the few Antarctic islands not covered by snow and ice, graduate student Abby West is looking for fossils on Antarctica’s James Cook Island group as part of an international research team for the Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project (AP3). 

West, who studies an extinct order of South American hoofed mammals in a collaborative program between Columbia University and the Museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School, has so far found a big jaw that may have belonged to a mosasaur.

Meet more women in science we’re spotlighting on International Women’s Day.

Take cold-weather inspiration from Antarctica’s iconic emperor penguins!

Some animal species are impeccably prepared to cope with freezing conditions. Emperor penguins can tolerate temperatures as low as 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. They keep warm thanks to an inch-thick layer of fatty insulation and short, spear-shaped feathers—up to 100 of them per square inch of skin, enough to make these the mostly densely feathered birds on the planet.

These famously flightless birds are also accomplished divers, hunting fish, squid, and other marine fare more than 1,700 feet below the surface of the ocean. These hunting trips necessitate another set of adaptations for the penguin, which boasts solid bones that are resistant to trauma brought on by changing pressures during deep dives, rather than the hollow bones that are more common in birds.

Emperor penguins can also shut down some of their organs during a dive, redirecting energy and oxygen to support only the most essential functions. Combine these traits, and you’ve got an amazing animal that can swim for nearly 20 minutes at a time in freezing water—and bring back a meal for its chick to boot.

Pictured are models from the traveling exhibition, Race to the End of the Earth.

Scientific Expedition to Antarctica Will Search for Dinosaurs, Ancient Mammals

Museum Curator Ross MacPhee is part of an international team of researchers traveling to Antarctica this month to search for evidence that the now-frozen continent may have been the starting point for some important species that roam the Earth today.

Millions of years ago, Antarctica was a warm, lush environment ruled by dinosaurs and inhabited by a great diversity of life. But today, the fossils that could reveal what prehistoric life was like are mostly buried under the ice of the harsh landscape, making the role Antarctica played in the evolution of vertebrates a mystery.

Aided by helicopters, scientists on this month-long expedition will conduct research in the James Ross Island group off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, one of the few spots on Antarctica where fossil-bearing rocks are accessible.

The team is specifically searching for fossils from the Cretaceous through Paleogene, a period about 100 million to 40 million years ago that includes the end of the Age of Dinosaurs and the beginning of the Age of Mammals. MacPhee, who has worked on the continent before, is looking to learn more about some of those early mammals during this journey.

"What I hope to achieve this time is to discover the first evidence of mammals in the Cretaceous of Antarctica, species that lived at the end of the Age of Dinosaurs,” MacPhee said. “If we can find them, they will have a lot to tell us about whether any evolutionary diversifications took place in Antarctica, and whether this was followed by species spreading from there to other portions of the ancient southern supercontinent Gondwana."

The team is led by paleontologists from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, The University of Texas at Austin, Ohio University, and the American Museum of Natural History and supported by the National Science Foundation as part of the Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project, or AP3. You can follow their exploits on Twitter at @antarcticdinos.

No common insect, Wingless midge (Belgica antarctica) is an extremophile!

Only one true insect species makes its home on the icy continent of Antarctica where temperatures dip to –30˚F (–34˚C), and where it is considered the largest animal that lives exclusively on land. Its larvae can be frozen and dried until they lose two-thirds of their body weight and can go up to four weeks without oxygen.

Meet more extremophiles in Life at the Limits, now open at the Museum.

Image: Wikipedia

In this week's edition of the Expedition Report, Assistant Curator Estefanía Rodríguez travels to Antarctica to study sea anemones on a ship that serves as a floating field station – and, on which, sometimes getting there is half the adventure.

Dr. Rodríguez studies the diversity and evolutionary history of sea anemones, primarily those that are found in deep waters. She uses her studies in taxonomy to build an understanding of the ecology of sea anemones, and how they got to such harsh environments as Antarctica in the first place.

Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott was born on this day in 1868.

Scott captained the British expedition to the South Pole in 1911, attempting to be the first to successfully undertake the 1,800-mile journey from the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf to the South Pole and back. The expedition was arduous, beset with disaster, and ultimately proved fatal for Scott and his team. However, his contributions to science were significant, and the legacy he leaves behind is one of exploration and encouraging scientific investigation.