Ok. So I guess there is always time for more Penguins.

We kept on having a couple of teams of Penguins come and visit us. It never gets old.

They are especially pretty when it is late in the evening.

But everyone has to go home sometime.

Wrapping up the Evans Seeps

Thanks to the amazing ROV exploration by Leigh Tait and Antarctica New Zealand, more seeps were found for us to dive and sample. We have now sampled 3 very different areas across this embayment.

We just returned from our last foray north to the new seeps that have been discovered off of Cape Evans. The new site was beautiful and very seepy.

One of my favorite finds was a little clump of Cladorhyzid sponges. These can either eat zooplankton or some have symbionts that eat methane! Looking forward to some analysis to see what these eat. Especially since they were hanging right over a methane seep (just out of view).

The shallows (where we poke around for our safety stop) had a series of brinicles that were either reaching the seafloor or did during low tide as you can see the white frozen seafloor. These were also jam packed with amphipods (little arthropods) that appeared to like the ice on the outside (the red dots on the outside). You can also see them swimming around, since they did not like our bubbles hitting the ice overhead.

This is the first place I have seen anchor ice growing on algae, and just like the brinicles, it was very popular for the Amphipods.

I never get tired of the diversity of shapes and colors that ice is from the bottom. Here is a crack that separates the fast ice (ice frozen to the land) from the sea ice (floating ice). It is just over a meter thick here.

Cracks in the ice (good ones)

Today we swam to the other side of the McMurdo Jetty. This is the main site I have worked at for years and I wanted to see if there had been any big changes. Strangely enough there were much fewer of the faster growing sponges than the other side. In previous years we have seen outbreaks of Seastar Wasting Syndrome here and so I also wanted to see if there was an outbreak again (I didn't see any sick ones - so that is great).

The animal life on the seafloor is very similar to many other places but the crack along the top of the ice was more striking than the other side. This is the crack we have really enjoyed its variety from year to year, and this one didn't disappoint. Here is a worm tube (Feather duster/Sabellid polychaete) with tons of anemones growing on it, and then a sponge (Isodictya) and an inquisitive fish keeping an eye on me.

While there were more of the fast growing sponge on the other side of the jetty, some was still here. You can see why it is not a long lives species with three seastars eating it. These are the top predators here.

Looking back to the hole (which seems much farther away than it is) there is even more kinds of invertebrate diversity. Including a sea spider for good measure. When people talk about a lack of life in Antarctica, they are very much not talking about the ocean floor.

While there is less life in the water, much of it is still striking. Plus the lack of much phytoplankton is why the water is clear enough for the images here.