Abstract Although the present environmental conditions on Mars prohibit the generation of significant volumes of liquid water, observations of several very young landforms, such as gullies and recurrent slope lineae, have been interpreted as signals for aqueous processes. To explore the range of conditions under which such features can be formed on Earth, a field site in northern Victoria Land, East Antarctica, was geomorphologically investigated. Despite the small size of the ice-free area, the site displays gullies, water tracks and other traces of liquid water. The gullies show clear evidence of sediment transport by debris flows, and are typical of paraglacial processes on steep slopes in a recently deglaciated area. Water tracks appear in different forms, and seem to recur seasonally in the austral summer. Melting of snow and surface glacier ice is the major water source for both debris flows and water tracks. The observations presented here highlight the potential for hyperarid polar deserts to generate morphogenetically significant amounts of meltwater. The gullies are morphologically analogous to Martian gullies, and water tracks on steep slopes appear very similar to recurrent slope lineae. The observations suggest that even small ice-free sites in continental Antarctica may enable observations which can serve as a basis for working hypotheses in Mars analogue studies, and future field work should consider more areas in Antarctica in addition to the McMurdo Dry Valleys to search for Mars analogue landforms.

Abstract We report on a decade of fieldwork designed to determine the conditions required for erosion of Mars-like gully channels in the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV) of Antarctica. We have outlined the major factors in the morphological evolution of gullies in the Inland Mixed Zone of the MDV: (1) the distribution of ice sources; (2) the temporal aspects of ice melting; and (3) the relative significance of melting events in gullies. We show that significant erosion of gully channels can be achieved if geometrical and environmental conditions combine to concentrate ice where it can rapidly melt. In contrast, annual melting of surface ice and snow deposits during late-season discharge events contribute to transport of water, but flux rarely surpasses the infiltration capacity of the active layer. These small discharge events do not erode channels of significant width. Even when the flux is sufficient to carve a c. 10–20 cm deep channel during late summer (January–February) runoff, these small channels seldom persist through multiple seasons, because they are seasonally muted and filled with aeolian deposits. We briefly discuss the application of these results to the study of gully systems on Mars. Supplementary material: Eight videos showing activity and events are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3935992

ABSTRACT Today, women make up about one-third of all scientists who go to Antarctica for research. However, it was just under fifty years ago that the first woman principal investigator was funded by the then United States Antarctic Research Program, which today is known as the United States Antarctic Program (USAP). Colin Bull, Director of the Institute for Polar Studies (today called Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center or BPCRC), had advocated for women to be allowed in Antarctica since 1959. At the time, female graduate students worked on Antarctic research, but were not able to conduct their own fieldwork; thus they relied on men to collect samples and gather the data they needed up until the ban was lifted. One such woman was Lois Jones, whose Ph.D. adviser was The Ohio State University geochemist Dr. Gunter Faure. Once she completed her dissertation on the geochemistry of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, she submitted a proposal for fieldwork in Antarctica to be funded by the USAP. Her proposal was approved and she and her field party of three other women went to Antarctica during the austral summer of 1969–1970. In addition to fieldwork in the Dry Valleys, they gained the honor of being four of the first six women to make it to the South Pole. While the women faced many challenges and chauvinism, their field season was successful. This has led to a legacy of women in Antarctica. Faculty, alumna, and staff from The Ohio State University figure prominently in this story, due to the affiliation of the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center with Ohio State.

Abstract: The Ferrar Large Igneous Province forms a linear outcrop belt for 3250 km across Antarctica, which then diverges into SE Australia and New Zealand. The province comprises numerous sills, a layered mafic intrusion, remnants of extensive lava fields and minor pyroclastic deposits. High-precision zircon geochronology demonstrates a restricted emplacement duration (<0.4 myr) at c. 182.7 Ma, and geochemistry demonstrates marked coherence for most of the Ferrar province. Dyke swarms forming magma feeders have not been recognized, but locally have been inferred geophysically. The emplacement order of the various components of the magmatic system at supra-crustal levels has been inferred to be from the top-down lavas first, followed by progressively deeper emplacement of sills. This order was primarily controlled by magma density, and the emptying of large differentiated magma bodies from depth. An alternative proposal is that the magma transport paths were through sills, with magmas moving upwards to eventually reach the surface to be erupted as extrusive rocks. These two hypotheses are evaluated in terms of field relationships and geochemistry in the five regional areas where both lavas and sills crop out. Either scenario is possible in one or more instances, but neither hypothesis applies on a province-wide basis. Supplementary material: The locations of samples, and trace element data and major element analyses of samples are available at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3819454