The International Polar Foundation mourns the passing of one of the giants of polar research.

Prof. Jörn Thiede (1941-2021), Honorary Member of the International Polar Foundation (from 2002), passed away this summer. The IPF lost an adviser and friend who had guided the Foundation from its early formative period. 

Despite being the Director for many years of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, one of the foremost polar research establishments in the world, he remained always very approachable and humble. Many young scientists will remember him as having been instrumental in helping them find their way in the world of polar research.

His palaeogeological work on ocean sediments inspired many to follow and opened up the exploration of longer time series on climate than those offered by the studies of ice cores. The number of expeditions he actively participated in would require several volumes to recount.   

Jörn Thiede was the recipient of many awards and tokens of recognition for the valuable contribution he made to Polar research. The GEOMAR Institute, which he helped to found at the University of Kiel, mentions his numerous achievements in their obituary notice:

ransform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;"> The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the DFG (1988), the Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1995), honorary citizenship of the city of Bremerhaven (2010), the International Willy Brandt Prize (2011), the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society (London), the Grand Prix d`Océanographie of the Fondation Rainier III de Monaco, the Chevalier de l’ordre national du Mérite, France as well as the Honorary Fellow of the EUG and Honorary Doctorates of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden and St. Petersburg State University,  member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz (1991), member of the National Academy Leopoldina (from 2007),  member of the Royal Norwegian Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Natural Sciences - Russian Federation, the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences, and the Academia Europaea.

Prof. Thiede was truly international in spirit and deed. He worked assiduously to bring together scientists from all over the World, including during the International Polar Year 2007-2009, in which he played a key role. 

Despite his numerous projects and activities, he still managed to find the time to participate in the Arctic Futures Symposium held by IPF and its many Arctic stakeholder partners, and to Chair the Committee of the Baillet Latour Antarctica Fellowship, which awarded the largest single biennial prize to young scientists wishing to carry out research in the Antarctic.

A truly great man, a visionary scientist, who lived life with humour and energy.  He will be greatly missed by many. 

On the 19th of July 2021, Alain Hubert and Nighat Johnson-Amin of the International Polar Foundation flew to Ilulissat on the west coast of Greenland to assist Simon Steffen and Derek Houtz of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) in Zürich in their mission to remove the remains of the Swiss Camp research station from its location on the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Konrad Steffen (Koni), former Director of the WSL, as well as the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder and the scientific Director of the Swiss Polar Institute, was one of the world’s leading glaciologists and a leading authority on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Simon and Derek had accompanied him on his last fateful mission to Swiss Camp in August 2020, and it was with great emotion that the team found itself in Ilulissat again, preparing to head out there. They were to be witnesses to the end of an era.  

Evidence that the summer melt on the ice sheet was accelerating had been growing in recent years, and Koni was tireless in sharing this message. He had spent just over 30 years studying the changes happening to the Greenland Ice Sheet, and in particular to the Jakobshaven Glacier ablation zone. In fact, Swiss Camp sat close to this point so critical for the assessment of the changes in the flow of the glacier, which emerges in a bay to the south of Ilulissat, about 80 kilometres away.

In 2019, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Swiss Camp, Koni had welcomed a group of VIPs at the camp in order to show them firsthand what was happening to the ice sheet, so that they would appreciate the potential impacts of Greenland's melt on the rise in sea levels across the world’s oceans. Koni was tireless in his attempts to drum the message home to politicians, to the public, and to other researchers that there was cause for serious concern.

In the summer of 2019, the situation became critical at Swiss Camp, as the melt began to affect the foundations of the platform under the camp, leaving it very exposed to the katabatic winds that form at the summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Alain and Nighat first went to Swiss Camp at the invitation of Koni in 2011 and found themselves unexpectedly extending their stay as the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano erupted in nearby Iceland, grounding all air traffic for several days as the ash cloud settled. In 2012, Swiss Camp was suffering from the movement in the ice sheet, and Koni invited the pair back to help rebuild a completely new platform, which was installed at ground level.

By the following year, the platform was again two metres up in the air. The ice had receded from below, and the foundations had to be reinforced. Snow accumulation and melt cycles continued over the following years, but miraculously the camp held, until 2019. That summer, it became increasingly obvious that the area was in transition, as new crevasses opened up around the platform, and even close to the tents. It was fast becoming obvious that the site was no longer safe for operations.

In late July 2020, as Koni arrived in Ilulissat ready to fly in to the camp to assess the conditions, he received satellite images that showed that the platform had collapsed. He was accompanied that year by Simon, Derek and Jason Box, (a foremr student of Koni's who later joined the Denmark Geological Survey (GEUS), which took over the maintenance of the automatic weather stations (AWS) that Koni had installed).

This was to be Koni’s last research mission to Greenland. On the 8th of August 2020, he disappeared when we went out onto the ice. The search and rescue teams that flew in later that day deduced that he had fallen into one of the larger crevasses in the area.

Returning to Swiss Camp in July 2021 was not straightforward. The summer of 2021 had proved to be a summer of meteorological records: the hottest, wettest, strangest summer of plagues of Biblical dimensions. Fires burned along the West Coast of the US and parts of Siberia. Heatwaves were followed by torrential rains, causing catastrophic flooding in parts of Europe. 

Greenland was not spared the fluctuations in weather, as unsettled weather systems unfurled over the Davis Strait from Canada, one succeeding another. The first attempt to reach the camp had to be aborted as thick fog blanketed the ice sheet. The next attempt took place on the 25th of July Flying in, the team was able to see the full extent of the summer melt, with ubiquitous surface melt ponds like pure blue lakes dotting the ice sheet. Rivers flowed on the surface of the ice. Barely any snow was visible, that is until Swiss Camp was reached.

Once there, the team had to rope up in order to assess the area. A safe zone was staked out in a ring around what remained of the platform and the facilities that had been there. The mess tent had virtually disappeared into the snow. The workshop tent was still intact, but half full of snow. This snow blanketed the structures that poked out where the support posts had been. It looked like a shipwreck.

One ten-metre weather station tower had collapsed, and the other AWS sat on the far side of a crevasse. Koni’s tent, which Simon had left up for him, was buried up to the very tip, of which only a few centimetres were still visible.

Once camp was set up and the dome mess tent was operational, our task was to recover all the equipment, snow mobiles, and supplies that could be salvaged and to return them to Ilulissat (where Kathy and Steve Young, previously of Polar Field Services, supporting the US National Science Foundation (NSF) operations in Greenland (of which Swiss Camp was a part initially), would manage their recovery, recycling or disposal).

The cleanup was not a simple task. Once the platform had been disassembled and the wood piled up, the remainder of the equipment and snowmobiles were under thick snow. Much of the snow is what is referred to as “sugar snow” resembling granulated sugar. This substance is not very compact and very slippery; it gives virtually no traction for pulling.

The surroundings of the safe zone were completely bare, in contrast to Swiss Camp, which was blanketed. A few days of digging uncovered a thick layer of solid ice about a metre and a half down, which had encased the snow mobile runners. But this ice layer lay under about thirty to forty centimetres of water.  No amount of bailing could lower the level of the water. One snowmobile was dragged out with slings, but a second, which looked promising, was held fast by one ski and no amount of pushing or pulling could dislodge it. Finally, that ski had to be removed with a disc cutter. The two snowmobiles were flown back to Ilulissat on the last day by helicopter, dangling underneath it like two yellow ducks.

When the Bell 212 helicopter flew in to Swiss Camp on the 27th of July, the pilots brought us the news that the temperature in Ilulissat was a sizzling 18°C! But that was not all. In Kangerlussuaq, the temperature had soared to 27°C! This had never been experienced before in Greenland. The Danish researchers later estimated that the melt on the 27th of July from the Greenland Ice Sheet produced enough water to cover the entire State of Florida in 5 cm of water.   

This news was not encouraging. Alain and Derek roped up to carry out the maintenance of the AWS, and Alain surveyed a path from the safe zone to the weather station so that Derek could go and recover the memory card from the other side of the crevasse.

The two also dismembered the ten-metre tower and packed whichever instruments and sensors were still intact to send them to Ilulissat, and from there to Zürich. The intention was to try and assemble a new AWS for Antarctica from whatever could be salvaged.

A Viking ritual in the lit pyre of wood from the platform served as our memorial service for Koni.  We spent the last night in quiet contemplation. The place held many memories for all present.

On the morning of the 29th of July, two helicopters flew in to evacuate the camp and the salvaged equipment. On the flight back to the coast, a further stop was planned to service a GPS station at the Jakobshaven ablation zone. But we learned that the apparatus had been all but swallowed up by thick ice, and the attempt was abandoned.

It was during the flight back to the coast along the glaciers that it became apparent that the level of melt on the ice sheet was exceptional. Swiss Camp was like a speck of snow surrounded by bare ice sheet stretching hundreds of kilometres in all directions. In places, the surface of the ice sheet was so dark that it accelerated the melt. In others, we saw the rosy tint of pink snow, which harboured algae, which also accelerated melt.

The glacier front itself was now on land and no longer in the fjord.

It is now clear that recent warming has transformed the ice sheet into a much more dangerous and unpredictable place to conduct research than a few decades ago. But as we left to return to Brussels, Derek was about to join Danish researchers who were going to service the remaining weather stations during the month of August.

On the 9th of August, a year after the disappearance of Koni, the IPCC published their Sixth Assessment Report on the science supporting projections of climate change and its impacts to a frenzied reception, as storms, and fires, continued unabated. It sounded like a foghorn warning of the dangers ahead.  

On Tuesday, July 13th, Mychael Arafe and Roman Petibon, two climate activists in their early 20s who founded the Paulette Ride for the Planet project, visited IPF headquarters to interview IPF Founder Alain Hubert and Science Liaison Officer Henri Robert for a documentary they are making about the green transition.

In March, Michael and Roman left their homes in Central France to cycle across 11 European countries with the aim of collecting interviews from European citizens about their environmental concerns. They've also been speaking with climate innovators working on initiatives that are helping the world to transition away from carbon-intense energy sources and towards more renewable and sustainable ones. The two travelling friends plan to use the interview footage they've been collecting along their months-long journey to produce a seven-episode documentary.

During their interviews with the two young activists, Alain and Henri discussed the design, construction, and operation of the world's first zero-emission polar research station, the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica. They stressed that in addition to society transitioning to more renewable sources of energy, having a different attitude towards energy use is also important, as we all need to learn to use less energy and live more sustainably.

The pair of activist cyclists hope that once completed, the documentary will "provide our generation with keys to understanding and inspiration to help them get started and do their part in the green transition." 

They plan to finish up their bike tour around Europe and return to central France in late July to start work on the documentary, which they plan to finish by December. They intend to broadcast the documentary online over seven episodes.

The most recent Baillet Latour Antarctica Fellowship laureate, Dr. Kate Winter of Northumbria University, along with Dr. Denis Lombardi from the Royal Observatory of Belgium and other colleagues from Newcastle University have published a paper describing their findings from data they collected using low-cost Raspberry Shake seismographs.

While in Antarctica to complete the second of two seasons of her BioFe reach project in January 2020, with help from the technicians at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA) research station, Dr. Winter installed several Raspberry Shake 3D seismographs on a wind-scoured blue ice area close to the station in order to explore local seismic activity in the area.

The ice sheet covering Antarctica is constantly flowing towards the coast in all directions outwards from the highest points in the interior of the continent due to gravity. The ice frequently undergoes stress as it expands, contracts, and flows, which often creates small yet measurable icequakes.

During a ten-day monitoring period, the seismographs detected thousands of icequakes.  One even detected  2,936 icequake events.

The paper, entitled “Monitoring Icequakes in East Antarctica with the Raspberry Shake”, was published in April in the journal Seismological Research Letters.

Collecting data

Raspberry Shake manufactures seismographs that are easy to set up and deploy even in extreme environments so that scientists and even non-scientists who are interested in citizen science can collect seismographic data wherever they are in the world. All data collected worldwide is uploaded to the global Raspberry Shake server. However, due to limited access to the Internet in Antarctica, Dr. Winter had to make a few modifications to the seismographs (which she managed to do thanks to her knowledge of the Python programming language) so that they could collect data without uploading them to the Raspberry Shake server, and instead be retrieved once the unit had been removed from its location at the end of her most recent trip to Antarctica.

Dr. Winter and her colleagues validated the data they collected by comparing them to the data taken from a broadband station close to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, where data broadly matched what the seismographs collected.

By comparing their data with local air temperature measurements from the Landsat8 satellite, the research team determined that fluctuations in temperature over the course of the day due to varying levels of solar radiation are the main reason that the ice contracts and generates seismic activity in the blue ice fields.

“Our short-term seismic investigations provide us with valuable information on the thermal state of the ice and ice fracture mechanics in blue ice areas (which are often difficult to obtain by other means),” Dr. Winter explained.

An inexpensive way to collect seismic data

The study demonstrates Raspberry Shake’s general main purpose of providing inexpensive seismographs that can allow anyone, whether scientist or non-scientist, to collect seismic data from anywhere in the world. As seismographs are small, lightweight, and easy to transport, scientists can easily take some on missions and non-scientists can place them at home or at work to gather data.

While there are many Raspberry Shake seismographs in more populated areas of the world, there aren’t too many in the Polar Regions at the moment. But Dr. Winter hopes that their most research paper will help convince scientists to take a few low-cost seismic sensors on missions in the future to help collect cost-effective data on seismic activity and fill in some gaps around the world.

“I will certainly pop a Raspberry Shake or two in my kit bag the next time I travel to the Arctic or Antarctic,” she said. “As they are so small and lightweight, I won’t have to take out too much of my emergency chocolate to fit them in!”

On Wednesday, May 5th, IPF Founder and President Alain Hubert took part in the online webinar debate "The European State of the Climate: An open Arctic, why does it matter for Europe?" hosted by the Brussels Times.

Coming on the heels of the recent release of the EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service's annual European State of the Climate Report for 2020, the event focused on the issue of climate change in the Arctic, why it matters to Europe, what the EU can do about it, and actions citizens can take to address climate change.

Expert panel

Deputy Director of Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Samantha Burgess explained the European State of the Climate report and how the service is providing a dataset with detailed information about how weather and climate conditions in the region are evolving. Using dozens of satellites that monitor land, sea, and air, the CS3 provides key data about Earth's climate that serves as a source of information to formulate climate policy.

Alain commented on the changes he was able to witness firsthand during expeditions over the last 30 years, in particular how significantly the sea ice thickness in the Arctic has diminished over the last few decades. He also stressed the need to take action on climate change, as the effects of inaction could be dramatic, as well as the need to finance Arctic research, especially research stations in the Arctic, now more than ever when we need it the most.

EU Special Envoy to the Arctic Michael Mann highlighted the actions the EU is taking in the Arctic, mostly notably financing research in the region and programmes that foster Arctic cooperation, and updating the EU Arctic Policy. He also reminded everyone that the Arctic is home to people who have a right to have a good standard of living and prospects for future generations, so any adaptation and mitigation measures need to be considerate to their needs. Due to its unique environment, he mentioned that the Arctic can be a testbed for green technologies.

Finnish Member of the European Parliament Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, who co-chairs the European Parliamentary Intergroup “Climate Change, Biodiversity, and Sustainable Development”, stated that the EU Green Deal is Europe's response to addressing climate change. She highlighted the need to take a holistic approach across sectors to address the problem, and that a lot of the financing to do so would need to come from the private sector. Investors will need to determine where money is put, and whether it's put into green initiatives.

Elena Višnar Malinovská, Head of Unit for Adaptation to Climate Change at the Directorate-General for Climate Action at the European Commission, mentioned that the Green Deal was predicated on the cost of inaction on climate change. She stressed the need to take both adaptation and mitigation measures in the face of climate change, and that measures taken should be based on sound data. She also pointed out that due to the nature of Earth's climate system, changes to the climate are not linear, and certain tipping points, which could lead to drastic changes in climate, are risks we need to prepare for.

Rowan Douglas, Head of Climate and Resilience Hub at Willis Towers Watson, focused on the financial aspects of climate change. While climate change adaptation and mitigation may incur initial costs, these investments are worth it as the financial costs of inaction due to climate will end up being far more expensive. He posited the idea that in the future, companies will need to take climate change into account when making business decisions and declare foreseeable climate risks in their financial statements, as climate change is a "credit risk" the could affect the prices of a company's assets.

Audience participation and reaction

The online audience, which was estimated to be about 513,000 according to the Brussels Times, had a high level of participation in the event. Not only were audience members allowed to ask questions to the panelists, but they also took part in a series of thought-provoking online polls related to climate change perceptions, what the EU and individuals can do to address climate change.  For example, when asked whether they plan to make changes to their investment portfolios to make them more resilient to climate change, the majority of respondents said they hadn't thought of doing so, but plan to make changes to their portfolios.

An article summarising the event has been published on the Brussels Times website and a full recording of the webinar is available for viewing.

An expert in micrometeorites at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) who won the 2010-2012 Baillet Latour Antarctica Fellowship, Dr. Steven Goderis has spent several seasons using the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA) as a base to collect micrometeorites.

Recently, he and his colleague Matthias Van Ginneken (along with a Belgian and international team) published a paper whose findings indicate that a large asteroid 100-150 metres wide fell to Earth and exploded about 5 km over the East Antarctic Ice Sheet about 430,000 years ago. The samples Drs. Goderis and Van Ginneken collected in the Sør Rondane Mountains close to PEA in 2018 and their subsequent analyses were key to determining what happened all those millennia ago.

According to the findings of the study, an asteroid broke up in the lower atmosphere over East Antarctica 430,000 years ago. How were you able to deduce this from the micrometeorite particles you and Matthias collected during your time at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica during recent research seasons?

We originally set out to sample more micrometeorites representing the flux of extraterrestrial material that has fallen to Earth over the last few million years, as the more particles you can extract, the rarer the types you might be able to find. At the same time, we wanted to check if perhaps we could find some microtektites - droplets of solidified melted material that were ejected during a large impact event in Southeast Asia approximately 790,000 years ago. Other teams had found those elsewhere in Antarctica a few years ago.

And we did find those micrometeorites and microtektites. But at Walnumfjellet in the Sør Rondane Mountains we also noticed that a fraction of the particles we extracted from the deposits did not display the textures and oxygen isotopic compositions typical of “normal” micrometeorites. Rather, these particles were more akin to meteoritic debris that was previously collected at Dome Fuji and Dome Concordia. While similar to the particles found at Dome Fuji and Dome Concordia, the Walnumfjellet particles are considerably more abundant and larger in size, implying that the meteortic debris collected at Walnumfjellet may have been closest to the site of impact.

Looking at the oxygen isotopic composition of the particles, we could deduce that we were dealing with an airburst explosion that happened quite close to the surface of the ice sheet. This explosion created hot jets of half-molten rock and vapourised material. But since this airburst event happened so close to the surface of the ice sheet, the remnants of the asteroid were able to interact with the ice. So what we found in the samples we collected at Walnumfjellet were hybrid beads. They had the chemical composition of a meteorite, but a very particular oxygen isotopic composition linked to Antarctic ice.

Based on the particle abundance and distribution, combined with numerical modeling, we determined that these particles formed from a relatively small body - only 100-150 metres across. What makes it unusual is that it managed to make its way through most of Earth’s atmosphere until it exploded at a very low altitude. Normally in these kinds of events, we see the meteor explode higher up in the atmosphere, usually about 30-50 km up. This particular asteroid managed to make it very close to the ground before exploding. So when it exploded, it still had a lot of momentum. We have only limited evidence for such events in the geological record, and most of these events appear to have been preserved in the cold and dry Antarctic environment.

Where exactly did you find these unique particles?

We found the remnants of this airburst event in sedimentary traps we sampled at Walnumfjellet. The idea is to study glacially-eroded surfaces that have been exposed to the atmosphere (and consequently cosmic rays from space) for at least three or four million years. Over the time that these rocks have been exposed, they’ve been collecting extra-terrestrial material that falls to Earth.

Mostly these traps collect the background flux of micrometeorites that arrive on Earth every day. We’ve found melted and unmelted micrometeorites of all types of textures and consistencies that have accumulated over the past few million years.  

But we’ve also been finding a lot of other interesting material as well. Matthias - who had previously worked on micrometeorites in the Trans-Antarctic Mountains that divide East and West Antarctica - noticed very particular particles in the samples: larger spherules with small, aggregated spheres attached to them displaying distinct textures. These types of spherules are formed only in hot and dense vapour plumes, such as airburst events when a meteorite explodes close to the ground. 

The meteoritic debris particles we found at Walnumfjellet are larger than those found in the Trans-Antarctic Mountains by a French-Italian team several years ago, which could mean that they were formed during a similar but possibly larger airburst event than the one that took place over the Trans-Antarctic Mountains. 

Are these kinds of events relatively common, as far as you can tell?

We’re still trying to figure out if events in which a moderately-sized asteroid makes it through Earth’s atmosphere are fairly common or not. Our guess is that such events take place roughly once every 1,000 to 5,000 years. It’s difficult to find evidence of these kinds of events in the geologic record. The only reason we find evidence of them in Antarctica is that the continent has excellent preservation conditions for micrometeorites. It’s like the evidence has been stored in a big freezer. Anywhere else in the world, meteoritic debris indicative of this kind of event tends to be broken down and altered, and may disappear from the geologic record relatively quickly, or may just be extremely hard to find.

How were you able to determine the approximate time window when the airburst occurred from the spherule micrometeorites you collected?

We use cosmic ray exposure dating. You use various nuclides in a set of samples to determine how long they’ve been sitting on an ice-free surface, exposed to cosmic rays. 

Walnumfjellet is actually a very flat surface that has been exposed to the elements for a long time. Japanese teams who have been to PEA to study the deglaciation history of the Sør Rondane Mountains had determined that Walnumfjellet has been deglaciated for about 1.9 million years. Our own analyses confirm this estimate. So our sediment traps could have captured anything over the period of time Walnumfjellet has been ice-free. It makes it a great place to look for micrometeorites. 

The more refined ages for the airburst event come from the correlation of these particles with those trapped in the ice cores drilled at Dome Fuji and Dome Concordia. The ages of these ice cores are really well constrained based on glaciological models.

Among all of the micrometeorites you’ve found during your trips to Antarctica, are the ones indicative of this airburst event 430,000 years ago the most sensational you’ve found thus far?

We also found some microtektites at Walnumfjellet. Microtektites are different from micrometeorites in that they are glassy spherules that from when you have a big meteorite impact somewhere on Earth that creates droplets of glass that rain all over the globe.  The Australasian strewnfield - a wide debris field covering parts of Southeast Asia and Australia that resulted from a major meteorite impact about 790,000 years ago - also extends to the Sør Rondane Mountains in Antarctica.  A paper about those findings came out earlier this year in Geoscience Frontiers.

Having been ice-free for so long, Walnumfjellet is a great place to look for micrometeorites and microtektites, which provide evidence of large airburst and impact events. But while we only found a few microtektites from the meteorite impact 790,000 years ago, we found a lot more from the airburst event 430,000 years ago, which means  Walnumfjellet may have been relatively close to the point of impact.
And I’m sure we’re in for a few more surprises in the near future. Antarctica really is one big treasure trove in this context. Wherever you go in these kinds of exposed mountainous areas, you’ll always find something different. This is a great reason to go back to the Sør Rondane Mountains and take more samples in the future.

How did the research collaboration come together?

A lot of Belgian researchers worked on this project. Matthias managed to get a good team together.  Together, he and I sampled various locations in the Sør Rondane Mountains during the 2017-2018 field season under the Belgian Antarctic Meteorites and Micrometeorites (BAMM) project of the Belgian Federal Science Policy (BELSPO). The two sites with the most abundant and interesting samples were located at the southern edge of the mountain chain, at Walnumfjellet and Widerøefjellet. 

Vinciane Debaille from the ULB and Philippe Clayes from the VUB, who have been linked with our meteorite hunting expeditions since they began more than a decade ago, were also involved in this project, as well as Sophie Decrée from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. Graduate students Bastien Soens and Flore Van Maldeghem, both VUB also contributed to this work. 

But of course, as we don’t have all the instruments or expertise needed to do the analysis here in Belgium, we had to look for international collaborators to help fill in gaps.

Felix Kaufmann and Lutz Hecht from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin helped with the electron microprobe work. Shuying Yang and Munir Humayun at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Florida conducted laser ablation ICP-MS measurements. Natasha Artemieva from the Russian Academy of Sciences took care of the modelling aspects. Due to their extensive experience on this topic, Kathryn Huwig and Ralph Harvey from the Case Western Reserve University and part of the ANSMET (Antarctic Search for Meteorites) Programme, as well as Matt Genge from Imperial College London helped us to interpret our results.

It may seem like a very niche topic, but it's actually very interdisciplinary in the sense that we combined a lot of different scientific expertise to perform the analysis.

Will the results of this study prompt further investigation into these kinds of events?

Now that we know these kinds of events have happened in Antarctica (in addition to the airburst event we’ve discovered, a similar event occurred 480,000 years ago, as well as one three million years ago in the Allen Hills) the next step is to determine whether each of these events have distinctive “fingerprints” in terms of the textural and chemical composition of the particles that these events produced. 

Once we have a good understanding of why we see textural and chemical differences in the particles produced by these events, we’ll be able to go into the geological record and look for indications of such events in ice cores, sediment cores, and so on. 

There are only a handful of scientists working on these kinds of topics.  We’ve got a lot of ground to cover to learn more. It will likely keep us busy for many more years.

Knowing more about the scale of these events and how frequently they happen is important for global security. How often do you believe events on this scale occur?

Based on our current knowledge, the range in the timeframe is really long. I’ve mentioned this type of event can occur once every 1,000 - 5,000 years, but it could be once in every 10,000 or 100,000 years. We’re basing our estimates on only a few events, so we need more data to have a clearer picture. The more effectively we can trace these events in the geological record, the better the constraints on the time frame we can provide.

It’s also important to try and predict the scale of the environmental effects such events can have.  If an airburst event like the one that happened 430,000 years ago over East Antarctica takes place in an unpopulated area, the consequences for society would be more limited. But if it occurs over a highly populated area, the blast could completely destroy a large city with damage up to hundreds of kilometres from the impact site, while at the same time devastate today’s global communications system.

Unfortunately, we’re talking about objects that are too small to be detected well in advance. The ground searching programmes typically focus on objects of 1 km and larger. Bodies that are 150 metres wide are often overlooked or not detected in advance, yet they can still do significant damage.

For example, the Chelyabinsk meteor that fell in Russia in February 2013 with no warning was only about 15 metres wide and exploded 23 km above the ground. But as it occurred over a populated area, it injured thousands of people, mostly due to broken windows and damaged buildings that resulted from shockwaves created by the airburst. 

The Tunguska event in 1908 over Siberia is thought to have been an airburst event of a meteor about 100 metres wide, so something similar to the event from 430,000 years ago that we’ve investigated. While it happened in a remote area of Siberia and only a handful of people were injured or killed, the airburst flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of more than 2,000 km2 .

However, we should bear in mind that the majority of the planet is not densely populated. Two-thirds of the plant is covered by ocean, and the majority of landmasses on the planet aren’t densely populated. So it would be extremely unlucky if such an event were to occur over a populated area.

Do you have plans to go back to PEA in the coming years to collect more micrometeorites and microtektites?

Nothing concrete has been decided so far. My colleagues and I would like to go back to the western part of the Sør Rondane Mountains to finalise sampling efforts there.  But eventually it would be nice to go to the eastern part of the Sør Rondane Mountains and the Belgica Mountains, and perhaps even to the Yamato Mountains with our Japanese colleagues to do some sampling there. Hopefully we’ll be able to secure some funding to go back to PEA so we can do this sampling once the pandemic is over. I’m sure there are a few more surprises to be found in this area.

I would like to stress that the sampling work we’ve been able to do has only been possible thanks to the existence of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica and the excellent logistical support we’ve received from the International Polar Foundation team at the station.

It is with immense sadness that the International Polar Foundation learned of the death of friend and Expedition Medic, Jacques Richon, who fell victim to an avalanche in the Canton of Valais, Switzerland on Friday 19th March.

Born in Switzerland in 1950, Jacques’ love of nature and the mountains of his native country was visceral and was a key part of who he was and who he became, the Mountain Rescue doctor. He completed his medical degree, specialising in surgery and emergency medicine.

In 1975 he met and became close friends with Alain Hubert (Founder of the IPF) while both were young men with a shared love of the mountains. With his emergency medical training, and experience as a mountain guide, Jacques was able to take on additional roles and responsibilities such as that of Emergency Surgeon at Air Glaciers (a local Swiss helicopter company that provides emergency services in the Alps). He also played an active role in the GRIMM (the emergency medical intervention group specialised in high mountain rescue in the Alps), as well as numerous other mountain-related associations.

His multiple competencies, and his ability to remain cool under pressure, made him the logical choice for Chief Medical Officer at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Research Station, overseeing all of the station’s medical facilities and procedures. 

During his time on the Expeditions crew, he made it his mission to improve the station’s medical infrastructure and telemedicine protocols in collaboration with the Sion Hospital in Switzerland. He also organised the pre-season Field Training in Chamonix and the field rescue simulation at the Princess Elisabeth Station. He was also a go-to medic for Alain Hubert for every problem associated with medicine for extreme conditions, in particular handling frostbite.  He continued to do his utmost to ensure the safety preparedness of everyone who went to the station.

IPF Founder and Belgian Antarctic Expedition Leader Alain Hubert said of his close friend:

"Jacques always challenged us in his own unique way, with his self-possessed attitude, his love of philosophy, and his acerbic sense of humour.

"Only a few weeks ago, as he landed in Cape Town after completing his 12th season in Antarctica, he shared with us his pleasure in having finally inaugurated the surgery room at the station during the past season – after many delays, he had finally been able to see the finished work. 

"Of the next season, he had explained that there were still a few details to take care of so that his eventual replacement as Chief Medical Officer at PEA would have plain sailing. We will always be thankful for having had the privilege of working with Jacques - not only due to his multi-faceted competencies, but also his wide experience, his friendship, and the trust he inspired over the years.

"Jacques was my friend for 45 years. We climbed many mountains and lived so many adventures together. I learned much from him, and he will be missed."

It is with immense sadness that the International Polar Foundation learned of the death of friend and Expedition Medic, Jacques Richon, who fell victim to an avalanche in the Canton of Valais, Switzerland on Friday 19th March.

Born in Switzerland in 1950, Jacques’ love of nature and the mountains of his native country was visceral and was a key part of who he was and who he became, the Mountain Rescue doctor. He completed his medical degree, specialising in surgery and emergency medicine.

In 1975 he met and became close friends with Alain Hubert (Founder of the IPF) while both were young men with a shared love of the mountains. With his emergency medical training, and experience as a mountain guide, Jacques was able to take on additional roles and responsibilities such as that of Emergency Surgeon at Air Glaciers (a local Swiss helicopter company that provides emergency services in the Alps). He also played an active role in the GRIMM (the emergency medical intervention group specialised in high mountain rescue in the Alps), as well as numerous other mountain-related associations.

His multiple competencies, and his ability to remain cool under pressure, made him the logical choice for Chief Medical Officer at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Research Station, overseeing all of the station’s medical facilities and procedures. 

During his time on the Expeditions crew, he made it his mission to improve the station’s medical infrastructure and telemedicine protocols in collaboration with the Sion Hospital in Switzerland. He also organised the pre-season Field Training in Chamonix and the field rescue simulation at the Princess Elisabeth Station. He was also a go-to medic for Alain Hubert for every problem associated with medicine for extreme conditions, in particular handling frostbite.  He continued to do his utmost to ensure the safety preparedness of everyone who went to the station.

IPF Founder and Belgian Antarctic Expedition Leader Alain Hubert said of his close friend:

"Jacques always challenged us in his own unique way, with his self-possessed attitude, his love of philosophy, and his acerbic sense of humour.

"Only a few weeks ago, as he landed in Cape Town after completing his 12th season in Antarctica, he shared with us his pleasure in having finally inaugurated the surgery room at the station during the past season – after many delays, he had finally been able to see the finished work. 

"Of the next season, he had explained that there were still a few details to take care of so that his eventual replacement as Chief Medical Officer at PEA would have plain sailing. We will always be thankful for having had the privilege of working with Jacques - not only due to his multi-faceted competencies, but also his wide experience, his friendship, and the trust he inspired over the years.

"Jacques was my friend for 45 years. We climbed many mountains and lived so many adventures together. I learned much from him, and he will be missed."

Swiss doctor Jacques Richon spent twelve seasons at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica from 2008 to 2021 as the station’s Chief Medical Officer. His decades of experience working as a surgeon, an emergency doctor carrying out helicopter rescues in the Alps, and a renowned mountain guide for extreme environments was a major asset to the teams he accompanied to the station. In his last interview with IPF, he talks about the work he did to improve the medical facilities at the Princes Elisabeth Antarctica, (PEA) and future plans he had for the station.

On Friday 19th March, Jacques Richon lost his life in an avalanche in the Swiss canton of Valais. The BELARE team, IPF and all his myriad friends are devastated by this terrible event. Dr Jack died as he lived, at full throttle. A very hard act to follow. We are impoverished by his absence and eternally in his debt for all he did to keep operations at Princess Elisabeth safe for all expeditioners.

What initiatives did you take to improve PEA’s medical facilities over the years?

I was the on-site doctor when the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Station was being built during the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 seasons. The station wasn’t finished yet during those first two seasons. We were living in tents until the main building of the station had been constructed, so medical facilities back then were very rudimentary - basically a red container called the “Swiss Hospital” - which was kitted out with examination bed, a window, a door, some shelving, and counters for the medical equipment and supplies.

As the station neared completion, we opened a small medical office in the main building. Despite space restrictions, we were able to fit an examination bed and monitoring equipment in the space. We had enough equipment to stabilise a seriously injured patient until a medical evacuation was possible. These past few years we began to concentrate on providing better medical facilities, particularly with regard to diagnostics as the costs of these technologies have decreased over time.

Three or four years ago, when we started to rebuild the station’s annexes, Alain had the idea of adding a new surgery room in case a more serious medical intervention might be required at some point. The construction team installed walls, heating, electricity, and lights, and then last year, we added medical fittings and furniture designed to be as ergonomic as possible.

The new surgery room is upstairs in the South Annex, so in case of emergency, we can access it from the outside using a stair ramp.

What improvements did you make during the last season (2020-21)?

During this past season, despite the COVID pandemic restricting operations, we managed to install the remaining furniture in the surgery room, including a fully mechanical operating table, which, as it’s not electric, can easily be repaired in case of damage. We also painted the room with a clear, washable bactericidal paint, making the room easier to disinfect. With no window in the room, having white-coloured walls makes the room feel brighter.

The new surgery room is very well-equipped. We’ve got surveillance equipment, oxygen, a defibrillator, medication, and surgical equipment for the eventual interventions. We can also administer local anaesthesia (for general anaesthesia, we would need someone on hand who has the qualifications and certification for this).

Will you still use the medical office in the main building of the station?

The medical office will still serve as a place where station residents can have a general medical consultation. The new surgery room will be used specifically for more severe injuries, reanimation, and surgical interventions.

Have you ever considered having more than one doctor at the station at a time?

There aren’t many of us at the station, and having two doctors simultaneously would be a big cost. Over the years, we’ve had very few serious injuries. Thankfully we’ve never had a very serious case that required a medical evacuation. So it makes sense to have only one doctor on-site. However, we frequently have additional personnel with paramedical skills on the staff.  Most of the time there is no work for the Medical staff and you help with other tasks at the station.

How did you handle the Covid-19 situation?

Dr. Martin Leitl was the station’s doctor for the first weeks of the most recent season. I relieved him in mid-December. IPF bought a PCR test machine and Martin took care of testing everyone during the quarantine in South Africa and also at the Station. It worked out very well and no one contracted the virus. GG had established the DROMLAN medical protocols to contain the risk of infection and transmission.

Even though everyone who came to the station had to follow very strict quarantine before leaving for Antarctica and were tested several times before leaving, we made absolutely sure that no-one at the station was infected with Covid at any time. Everyone was able to live at the station over the four months of the season without any worries.

Do you have other tasks apart from handling medical consultations while you’re at the station?

I’m not much of a carpenter or technician myself. This last season, in addition to painting the new surgery room, I helped the cook prepare meals every day. During previous seasons, I regularly worked as a guide and accompanied scientists in the field. We also organized field rescue simulations to train the personnel in case of an emergency in the field.

What are your future plans for medical facilities at the PE station now that the operating room has been completed?

Next season we hope to add a few more things to the surgery room such as a sink with running water. In the coming years, we had the idea that if there ever were a big medical emergency, it would be a good idea to have a room to monitor a patient. In the coming years we could free up a room next to the surgery room where we could put two beds, e.g. for a quarantine or a recovery room. One bed could be used for a patient and the other for the person providing the medical support. We also had the idea of one day installing a new medical laboratory, but this isn’t a priority at the moment. There is an existing wet lab shared with the water management team, but it is getting a bit crowded of late.

Between seasons, I’ve been working on updating the station’s medical plan and making a doctor’s mission statement so that IPF management are fully aware of all health risks at the station. The Belgian/Swiss collaboration between the hospital in Sion, Switzerland and IPF allows us to provide doctors for the missions in Antarctica. As part of this contract, I’ve been asked to consult with various specialists.

I’m also interested in further developing telemedicine capabilities at the station. We have a privileged contact with the emergency room staff at the hospital in Sion. We could connect with them using our satellite link via Skype or Zoom, which would allow us to share information such as patient scans and ultrasounds with specialists at the hospital.

Do you think you will continue to go on expeditions over the next few years?

My goal is to find a highly skilled replacement. I’m not getting any younger. We need someone who has the right skills in surgery and in administering anaesthesia. I’ll have to consult with Alain because there are a lot of qualified candidates for the position now. I hope to be able to train someone who will take over my position one day.

Guus Luppens, an electromechanical engineer who first travelled to Antarctica during the 2018-2019 research season, was tasked with handling a number of maintenance tasks for Princess Elisabeth Antarctica’s renewable energy production systems. We spoke with him about the work he had done with his colleague Johan Demuylder during the most recent season (2020-2021) at the station.

What were your primary objectives at the Princess Elsiabeth Antarctica this year? Were you able to accomplish them?

This season's goal was to increase renewable energy production to meet the increasing demand due to the expansion of the station to higher occupancy. The station was initially designated to host 18 people when it first opened in 2009; this past season we’ve made it possible to host 45 people.

We also replaced old-generation solar panels on the fuel platform's roof with new solar panels with two faces. The top face catches incidental solar radiation from the sun and the bottom face catches radiation reflected from the snow below it. Now each module produces almost 500 Watts per module, which is a lot compared to a single-faced solar panel, which produces only 345 Watts per module.

Thanks to the new double-sided solar panel modules, renewable energy production at the station almost doubled. With more people staying at the station, areas of the station such as the kitchen use more energy than before, so it’s good that we increased renewable energy production.

Once we installed the new double-faced solar panel modules, we worked for a week in-stalling 32 new solar panel modules on the new garage’s façade. We mounted them vertically on the façade because they get a lot of direct sunlight when the sun is low in the west in the late afternoon, which allows them to produce a lot of energy at this time of day. These new panels help to prevent any possible gaps in afternoon energy production.

How much have you been able to increase the energy production capacity of the station? What is the station's potential peak production capacity?

We mangled to increase the peak power of the solar panels by 43%, which is an outstanding result! In terms of how many extra kWh we produce, it's difficult to say, as we installed new solar panel technology this season, and the solar arrays are at different angles and orientations.

For us, maintaining continuous energy production throughout the day is more important than what is produced during peak production, as the goal is the sustainable use of energy. This means we don’t rely as heavily on the batteries as before.

Have you observed changes in the energy production capacity since you first started working at the station three seasons ago?

Yes, I’ve observed changes. What we’ve implemented has had some fascinating outcomes. 

Last year, we installed several new and improved dump load systems. These are intelligent controllers that can convert excess renewable energy into heat. In the past, this potential excess energy was simply not harvested and was forever lost. Now, when the station's battery arrays are full, excess renewable energy production gets put to good use, for example, towards a hot water tank that creates hot water for the station, or toward ambient heaters for the station’s annexes.

As a side effect, the wind turbines are slowed every time energy is consumed in the station (they are designed to do this), meaning there is less need for wind turbine maintenance.

Would any of this have been possible to accomplish without Johan?

Definitely not! Johan and I make a great team! He did almost all of the installation work, and I assisted him. A lot of planning and design goes into these kinds of procedures at the beginning of each season.

Once the solar panels are installed, we need to connect them and configure e-inverters to get the solar panels connected to the main building. For this, I was grateful to have Johan on board, as we could share the installation work.

How do you think PEA could be a model for people to increase renewable energy use and reduce their energy consumption?

Princess Elisabeth Antarctica is the best example to show that we do not have to rely on fossil fuels for our energy needs. Even in a remote and harsh place like Antarctica, we succeed at being 100% energy-sufficient using renewable energy. If we can accomplish this in Antarctica, it is undoubtedly possible to reproduce this in Europe or elsewhere in the world.

We must also remember that Princess Elisabeth Antarctica was built more than ten years ago when renewable energy technology was not as developed as it is today. Today renewable energy is cheaper and a lot easier to install.

What have you been doing since your return to Belgium? 

I have a lot of work waiting for me! We’re planning many meetings with IPF to evaluate the past season and start working on new renewable energy designs for next season!

Do you plan to go back to the station for the next season?

Two days before I left for Antarctica, I found out that my girlfriend was pregnant!

At first, I thought that becoming a father would keep me from going back to PEA. However, when you’re expecting a child, you reflect a lot on what the future will be like for future generations. I concluded that the best way to give my child a fair, sustainable and environmentally safe future would be to make sure I continue supporting climate change research as much as possible. So yes, I do hope to be able to go back to PEA.