Kategorie: News
Field research in Antarctica
Anyone conducting field research in Antarctica is exposed to the forces of nature and has to forego all comforts for several weeks, including time to themselves. Elisa Merz dives here for science. The biogeochemist and research diver from Konstanz has worked in one of the most extreme places on our planet.
Lake Fryxell is located in McMurdo Dry Valley on the Antarctic mainland. The lake is covered with a four to five-meter-thick layer of ice all year round and offers some biological peculiarities. It was at this very lake that Elisa Merz, a biogeochemist from the University of Konstanz, and her international colleagues worked in a field camp at the end of 2025. After breakfast and a morning briefing in the only heated hut, the scientists set off for the dive hole every day.
The water in Lake Fryxell only contains oxygen at depths of up to ten meters; below that, there is no oxygen. Such anoxic conditions are otherwise found in the deep sea or at very deep points in inland lakes such as Lake Constance, at depths of 50, 70, or 100 meters, which is deeper than divers normally go. In contrast, 10 meters is perfectly diveable. “The lake is also special because it has no macrozoological organisms, i.e., no fish and no large algae, but only lots of microorganisms,” explains Merz – for her, it's a research paradise: "Due to its closed ice cover, there is no wind and no current, so this lake does not mix. This means we can see the microbial mats at the bottom of the lake exceptionally well. We call these communities of microorganisms ‘lasagna mats’ because they are layered like lasagna.“
Diving at an outside temperature of minus 20 degrees? ”You imagine it to be incredibly cold, but the water is at least four degrees for the diver." According to Merz, the tough job is done by the person who holds the diving umbilical (the supply line for surface-supplied diving), i.e., who feeds or takes up the line at the top and thus maintains direct contact with it; this person stands in front of the tent and is directly exposed to the wind and cold. “We took turns, but when you're standing outside for 45 minutes, it gets borderline,” says the microbiologist.
What is it like to stay at the US McMurdo Station, the largest research station in Antarctica? What are the research conditions like at the field camp at Lake Fryxell? And what is Elisa Merz researching there? Read about it in our background report “In her element” in the University of Konstanz's digital magazine.