1 - Introduction

Summary

The dry valleys of East Antarctica are at first glance a barren landscape. This was certainly Robert Falcon Scott's impression when he was the first to visit the dry valleys in 1903. As his expedition marched down what is now called Taylor Valley, he commented in his journal “we have seen no living thing, not even a moss or lichen” and “It is certainly the valley of the dead; even the great glaciers which once pushed through it have withered away” (Scott, 1905). A party from Scott's second expedition, led by senior geologist Griffith Taylor, also visited the valleys in 1911 (Taylor, 1922). Another 45 years elapsed before other visitors came to the valleys when Operation High Jump established logistics bases at nearby McMurdo Station and Scott Base in 1956. These bases provided relatively easy access to the valleys by tracked vehicles and helicopters across the McMurdo Sound to these previously hard-to-get-to areas. Afterwards, the New Zealand national program carried out all kinds of natural science research in the valleys, largely based out of the busy Lake Vanda station which supported three manned over-winter investigations (Harrowfield, 1999). Early biological work in the dry valleys was also carried out by the U.S. program in the 1960s by now well-known ecologists Gene Likens, Charles Goldman, and John Hobbie who founded long-term monitoring programs at Hubbard Brook, Lake Tahoe, and Toolik Lake in Alaska (respectively).