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From unique wildlife to resilient microbes, world-changing climate dynamics to untapped biotechnological potential – four UNSW scientists outline what makes Antarctica a laboratory like no other.
Earlier this year, UNSW Sydney PhD candidate Christina Schmidt submitted her thesis – from the deck of Australia's multi-billion-dollar icebreaker, just off the East Antarctic coast.
Schmidt's research looks at Antarctic Bottom Water, which is the cold, dense water mass that forms near Antarctica and drives Earth's deep ocean circulation. However, her journey south was not about her own project, it was about gaining experience working in one of the harshest, least understood parts of the planet.
In the week leading up to submitting her thesis, she'd travelled thousands of kilometres across the Southern Ocean from Hobart to Antarctica. Schmidt was one of 60 scientists aboard Australia's icebreaker, the RSV Nuyina, on the Denman Marine Voyage.
The scientific journey, supported by a further 47 crew and 19 staff, explored the Denman Glacier, which is the fastest-retreating glacier in East Antarctica. This was the first full-scale marine science mission for the Nuyina. On board were advanced laboratories, sonar systems, as well as modular shipping-container labs.
Schmidt conducted titrations – a method used to measure how much of a chemical is in seawater. As an assistant to the hydrochemistry team, she analysed the oxygen levels in the Southern Ocean from one of the shipping-container labs.
The 24/7 operation lasted nearly two months, as a collaboration between Australia's four major Antarctic research organisations: the Australian Antarctic Program, the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership, Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future and the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science.
Shortly before submitting her final manuscript, Schmidt was greeted by her first glimpse of an Antarctic iceberg – a moment she'd waited years for.
She says her first days at the Denman Glacier were probably the best of her life.
"Every day there was something new: penguins waddling across the floes, or a jade green iceberg – which I'd never seen before."
Antarctica is not an easy place to reach, let alone study. The Southern Ocean that surrounds it is brutal – the waters aren't blocked by land, so harsh winds sweep around and around the continent. At times, this can reach speeds of hundreds of kilometres an hour.
The land itself has an extreme climate, contains fragile ecosystems and is wrought with political sensitivities.
Antarctica is also somewhat an oracle for Earth's future. Its ice sheets directly affect sea levels. The Southern Ocean drives the global climate system.
The RSV Nuyina's ability to reach new sites this year was due partly to dramatically reduced sea ice – a sign of change.
"The sea ice cover when we were there was 70% lower than average," says Schmidt.
"Last year, another icebreaker from Germany couldn't even get near the glacier because of the sea ice."
Sea ice is important for many reasons, just one of which is being an essential habitat for various species including krill, seals and penguins.
For Emperor penguins, this habitat is vital for breeding chicks.
The sea ice in the Bellingshausen Sea of West Antarctica was so low in the warmer months of late-2022 that baby Emperor penguins from four of five colonies died before they could develop waterproof feathers, swim or hunt for themselves.
This event was termed a "catastrophic breeding failure".
Antarctica is governed by the Antarctic Treaty System. Signed in 1959, it declared the continent a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science. So, while the region remains one of the most challenging frontiers in modern science, it also fosters a highly cooperative environment.
Back aboard the Nuyina, when temperatures plunged to –25°C, the pipes froze in the lab Schmidt was working in and crates containing the sample bottles became stuck in ice to the floor.
"The water also stopped running. But we made it work," Schmidt says, "with people from every part of the ship pitching in."
Scientists worked in 12-hour shifts, often sharing cabins with opposite schedules to ensure personal space. Four daily meals, housekeeping and even fresh iceberg lettuce until the voyage's final days made the expedition a home in one of Earth's harshest regions.
And on the final day of scientific operations near Antarctica, in waters more than four kilometres deep, the scientists measured Antarctic Bottom Water firsthand.
"I'd modelled it for years," Schmidt says. "And then, in the end, I got to measure actual bottom water."
Probing dark matter
"There's a whole ecosystem in Antarctica that we barely understand," says Professor Belinda Ferrari. She's an environmental microbiologist at UNSW who has spent more than a decade exploring the secrets hidden in the gravelly, ice-free soils near Casey Station – one of three permanent research outposts in Antarctica.
While only 0.3% of Antarctica is ice-free in summer, Prof. Ferrari says this fraction carries great ecological and scientific importance.
"All the activity is concentrated on the edge of the continent," she says.
"That's where all the animals are. That's where all the research stations are.
"That's where we've been looking at the ecology."
She says microbes are the dominant life form in Antarctica. In sifting through the dirt, she found at least 20 new species that may hold antifreeze proteins or novel antibiotics.
Some of those species are rewriting the rules of life itself – Prof. Ferrari previously discovered microbes that survive in the absence of sunlight, drawing their energy directly from trace gases in the air.
"They scavenge on hydrogen and carbon monoxide," Prof. Ferrari says. "That process – atmospheric chemosynthesis – allows them to persist through long, dark winters.
"Then in summer, when it's a little bit warmer, they get enough energy to grow."
These discoveries have implications beyond Antarctica.
"We are working with NASA scientists to determine the biological limits for life – as our discovery of bacteria living off air is the most promising ecological model for Martian life in the present or recent past," Prof. Ferrari says.
She says she has at least another decade of work ahead of her.
"We're looking at temperature, radiation, desiccation.
"It's about understanding how life endures and what that might mean."
A glow from below
One of Prof. Ferrari's former honours students at UNSW, Alinta Furnell, took Antarctic fungi into a different frontier: biotechnology.
Furnell's research into comparative genomics focused on a single Antarctic fungus. She analysed its DNA alongside other extremophiles from the deep sea as well as more temperate environments.
The organism had a genetic arsenal for producing novel compounds, some of which are potentially therapeutic. She also discovered the fungus was intensely autofluorescent, meaning it glows vividly under UV light.
"It's not common for fungi to do that, so we don't fully know why this one does," Furnell says.
However, she also managed to identify pathways for producing mycosporine-like amino acids – natural compounds that are already used in sunscreens because of their UV-protective properties.
"We tested and proved that the fungus has the pathway to make these," Furnell says.
"And that was exciting, thinking about how something evolved in Antarctica could have such practical applications."
Today, Furnell is a UNSW Adjunct Lecturer who runs biotech ventures channelling science into real-world solutions.
Watching the wild… from afar
Microbiologists and oceanographers are not the only scientists probing Antarctica's hidden realms.
UNSW Professor Tracey Rogers once studied predator–prey dynamics in the pack ice firsthand. But, she says, shifting priorities in Antarctic research have made field-based behavioural ecology harder to support.
"In my 30-year career, the hit rate for getting out in the field was one good year out of three," Prof. Rogers says.
"Now, PhD programs are shorter, milestones are stricter. So it's too risky to base your whole project on getting there."
The logistics of fieldwork in Antarctica are complex as well as expensive. Only a select few researchers get the chance to go south – and stay on the ice. And even then, Prof. Rogers says the helicopter access they need to get to (and leave) ice edges is rare. Without that support, working in the continent's wildlife-rich areas is too dangerous.
That's a challenge for her own PhD students, some of whom study Antarctic mammals and seabirds. Prof. Rogers advises them to diversify their methods.
"It's more likely that we work on datasets and then try and get you to Antarctica as a 'treat'," she says.
"And if you want to drift around in the ice floes, you've got a better chance of doing that by working with the tourism industry. Because that's what they do – they get out in small boats within the pack ice."
A land of enduring mystery
Antarctica is a remote but significant lab – binding Earth's past, present and future together through glaciers, wildlife, microbes and hidden genetic treasures.
So, where to from here? For Schmidt, it's a postdoctoral role at the other polar end of the world, modelling how Greenland's glaciers are melting. For Prof. Ferrari, it's continuing to map the limits of life on Earth and beyond. For Furnell, it's translating biology into biotech products. And for Prof. Rogers, it's helping students find their own path through the shifting landscapes of both ice and research.
While living aboard the icebreaker for weeks on end, Schmidt found her sanity in the sea ice, wildlife and the quiet.
"I'd wake up, put on all my gear, and just go outside. I could watch icebergs and penguins for hours," she says.
Unlike earlier voyages where communication meant the occasional email, Schmidt says she could video call her family – including taking her nearly 90-year-old grandfather on a live tour of the sea ice.
Reflecting on her own research as well as her role in a scientific expedition, she says cooperation is crucial to build Antarctic science and make it useful.
"It works best when people are willing to collaborate across disciplines and backgrounds."
