Record high temperatures were documented in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, on March 18, 2022, exceeding average temperatures for that day by nearly 30°C. Satellite imagery and stream gage measurements indicate that surface wetting coincided with this warming more than two months after peak summer thaw and likely exceeded thresholds for rehydration and activation of resident organisms that typically survive the cold and dry conditions of the polar fall in a freeze-dried state. Such events may be a harbinger of future climate conditions characterized by warmer temperatures and greater thaw in this region of Antarctica, which could influence the distribution, activity, and abundance of sentinel taxa. Here we describe the ecological responses to this weather anomaly reporting on meteorological and hydrological measurements across the region and on biological observations from Canada Stream, one of the most diverse and productive ecosystems within the McMurdo Dry Valleys.

The ICEBERG (Imagery Cyber-infrastructure and Extensible Building blocks to Enhance Research in the Geosciences) project (NSF 1740595) aims to (1) develop open source image classification tools tailored to high-resolution satellite imagery of the Arctic and Antarctic to be used on HPDC resources, (2) create easy-to-use interfaces to facilitate the development and testing of algorithms for application to specific geoscience requirements, (3) apply these tools through use cases that span the biological, hydrological, and geoscience needs of the polar community, and, (4) transfer these tools to the larger non-polar community.

Through rover missions and martian meteorites received on Earth, the surface of Mars has showed unexpectedly elevated concentrations of transition metals usually measured in minor and trace concentrations in silicate rocks compared to the average crust. Gale crater presents one of the most diverse geological records in terms of its complex fluid and magmatic history described through the sedimentary and igneous records, respectively. Transition metals, such as Mn, Co, Ni, Cu, and Zn, are highly concentrated within various sedimentary rocks and diagenetic features, suggesting their mobilization through fluid circulation. This paper presents the first compilation of elevated concentrations of transition metals measured by the Curiosity rover and reviews the origin of such metals in Gale crater, highlighting the existence of a hydrothermal or magmatic-hydrothermal deposit in its vicinity. The discovery of felsic magmatism on Mars opens up to novel perspectives in terms of the type of metal deposits that current and future exploration could evidence at the surface of Mars and raise questions about the global abundance of such metals. Constraining the abundance of transition metals is also a central question for exobiology purposes. Because on Earth living organisms use transition metals for their survival and functioning, should live have arisen on Mars, the availability of such chemical elements at the surface could have been essential for its development. An accurate assessment of in situ metal resources and potential risks for health will be key for the preparation of human exploration of Mars as recently announced by NASA.