I am a first year Ph.D. student, focused on interpreting diatom records to better understand paleoenvironmental conditions and facies present in the polar marine sediments around Antarctica. My work involves a multi-proxy approach involving sedimentology, stratigraphy, and geochronology, and I have been lucky enough to participate in two scientific research cruises. By learning more about Antarctica’s past responses to climate changes, we can more accurately project the effects, and respond to future climate change.
I started my M.S. in the fall of 2021, working with legacy sediment cores from the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica, and my first research cruise was in the spring of 2023. Now, halfway through my second cruise, I’m hopeful this is the beginning to a lengthy and successful career working (and doing fieldwork!) in polar marine science!
Antarctic Mud Mysteries!
Hello from Antarctica! I am a first year Ph.D. student, studying Coastal & Marine Science Systems at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. My graduate research work focuses on diatoms, examining them from Antarctic sediment cores to better understand past deglaciation, climatic conditions, and environmental changes. Fortunately, my research has given me the opportunity to travel and participate in some incredibly exciting fieldwork. I am currently writing this blog from the forward dry lab aboard the RV/IB (read: Research Vessel / Icebreaker) Nathaniel B. Palmer, sailing in the Ross Sea, Antarctica. To my right, I have a space heater cranked up to the max, and to my left I have a port hole where I can watch the ice slowly roll by. We are halfway through our research cruise, the second of my career. The cruise is funded by a National Science Foundation grant awarded to geophysicist Dr. Phil Bart, the Chief Scientist, from Louisiana State University. Last year, we sailed for 73 days across two legs: NBP23-01 and NBP23-02, stopping at the McMurdo station (the largest U.S. base in Antarctica) in between. This year, we wrap up fieldwork with cruise NBP24-03. Cruises incorporate a suite of geologic tools: seafloor mapping, sub-bottom profiling, ocean chemistry, sediment coring, and more, to satisfy our research objectives. Science happens 24/7 and we work in 12-hour shifts, mine being noon to midnight. Those 12 hours can feel incredibly long, especially at times when all we’re doing is recording multibeam seismic data. But despite the long days, our 30 days of science fly by and soon enough we’ll be back at the dock in Lyttleton, NZ. It’s nice to take a minute and reflect on how I got here, how lucky I am to be in this field, and how fricken cool Antarctica is.
When I was a junior in undergrad, pursuing a bachelor’s in environmental science, I had the opportunity to spend a summer studying abroad in Iceland. We basically went around the entire country in a bus, stopping frequently to look at outcrops, walk down beaches, descend into volcanoes, walk on glaciers, spot whales, swim in hot springs, ride horses, you name it. While the whole experience was amazing, I think walking on top of a glacier was the big ‘aha!’ moment when I knew I wanted to go on to graduate school and study something in the realm of polar science. I didn’t really have a clue what that “something” was, but there was something there that drew me. I think a big part of it, besides simply caring for the environment, is just how the high-latitudes look. The expansive and isolated wilderness is a complete polar opposite (lol) to what I grew up with in Michigan, almost otherworldly.
I interviewed around with this vague “something” in mind and almost abandoned the idea completely after one professor told me all their polar work had essentially “melted up.” But I was determined and very lucky, eventually ending up in Corpus Christi, TX, under the tutelage of Dr. Lindsay Prothro at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Dr. Prothro does most of her work on Antarctic sediments, focusing on the sedimentological record of ice-sheet changes and the processes that drive them. She was interested in bringing on a M.S. student to learn diatoms, the microscopic single-celled organisms that make up the base of the food chain and generate a significant portion of the oxygen produced on Earth. Diatoms live within intricate and beautiful silica shells and can be found almost anywhere where there is water (on the feathers of birds!). However, the reason we care so much and spend hours under a microscope is because their composition and distribution are closely connected to ecological conditions. Certain species can be indicative of warmer or colder sea surface temperatures, more or less sunlight, and higher or lower nutrient concentrations. When they die, their silica shells fall to the seafloor. As long as they are not eaten, crushed, or carried away by ocean currents, these shells are excellently preserved in polar marine sediments, and provide a long-term record of conditions at the ocean’s surface at the time each species was alive. I recently wrapped up my M.S. in which I examined this record to gain insights into the oceanographic, glacial, and climatic processes in the western Amundsen Sea, Antarctica.
Now I’m in the second semester of my Ph.D. in Coastal & Marine Science System at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Most people’s first thought when they hear “coastal” is warm sandy beaches and good seafood. My coasts are exactly the same, except it’s the coasts of Antarctica, around -13°C outside, and our “seafood” is heavily protected by the Antarctic Conservation Act (1978). My job is to sample polar marine sediment cores, examine the diatoms, and report back with a measure of the absolute abundance, relative abundance of each species, assemblages, facies, and trends. When the diatom record is paired with other tools like seafloor bathymetry, grain size, physical properties, geochronology, foraminifera, and more, you start to get a bigger and more comprehensive picture of what’s going on and when. To put it simply, we get the mud, look at the mud, and interpret the mud.
The less straightforward step is getting the mud. For access to fresh mud, you’ll need to propose a million-dollar research cruise like the one I’m on now. There are a lot of people required to make a cruise successful and a lot of very cool jobs to those interested. While technically one could call us all climate scientists, our science team is comprised of geophysicists, sedimentologists, micropaleontologists, geochemists, oceanographers, curators, and more, all at different career stages and experience level, working closely day and night to piece the big picture together. We also have a handful of support personnel and technicians (marine, laboratory, electronic, and information technology) aboard the ship who make research possible, even in the middle of the Southern Ocean. The captain, mates, and engineers make sure the boat itself can safely get where we want to go, and there’s a handful of crew members who help keep the ship functioning and operate the winches and cranes needed to deploy the different coring devices. Last but certainly not least, the most important people on board are the cooks, or maybe the doctor.
Antarctic marine fieldwork is very challenging. It’s icy, it’s cold, it’s remote, the seas are rough, there’s almost a complete lack of internet (we use satellite phones!), and not to mention it’s outlandishly expensive. Only with the support, collaboration, and enthusiasm of all these different people, that our research is possible. There are so many different things to love about Antarctic science, but the community and friendships have to be at my number one. A very close second is seeing emperor penguins and orca whales in the wild; that’s pretty amazing (as long as they’re not together!). Even with all the different jobs on a ship and people with very diverse backgrounds, I think Antarctica attracts people with very similar mindsets, and this results in a really fun and collaborative working (and living) environment. I also love being able to learn a variety of disciplines and skills outside my own research focus. Thanks to my Antarctica fieldwork, I’m a pro with a pipe cutter. Just today, I was picking foraminifera from a sediment sample, setting them aside for future radiocarbon dating. Being able to experience, learn, and help with all of the various things happening on an expedition, and not just the work you specialize in, helps to turn you into a more well-rounded and knowledgeable scientist.
Finally, I love how discovery is inherent to our work. In a place as remote as Antarctica, there is still a lot we don’t know about the past, not to mention how climate change is changing what we know about the present. We may start with a question, and perhaps a vague approach, but new challenges (like extreme ice accretion) make it difficult to follow a set plan. On the boat, we work with the data (and mud!) in real time to help formulate a day-by-day course of action that’ll hopefully provide enough information to answer our big question. Few people will ever make it down to Antarctica in their life, and I feel extremely lucky to not only be down here, but be a part of its discovery.
Bio:
Magkena Szemak
PhD Student in Coastal & Marine Science Systems from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
M.S. in Coastal & Marine Science Systems from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (2023)
B.S. in Environmental Science from Central Michigan University (2021)
Twitter: @magszemak
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