Over the 2023-2024 summer, SAEF will take part in the Denman Terrestrial Campaign. Led by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD), this major science campaign aims to study the Denman Glacier and Bunger Hills region.
For approximately eight weeks, our team will be based in a remote field camp in the Bunger Hills, a region 450 km west of Casey Station, alongside scientists and support personnel from the Australian Antarctic Division, the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science and the Australian Antarctic Partnership Program.
As part of this campaign, SAEF will conduct six interrelated research projects that seek to understand the region’s past, present and future and deliver insights that can inform its protection. The team will collect rock, soil, invertebrate and moss samples and complete drone, remote sensing and visual mapping.
The science will:
- help unveil the environmental history of the Denman Glacier, including how ice mass has changed over time and its implications for global sea level and biodiversity;
- reveal the drivers of patterns in the abundance of Antarctic life to improve projections for its responses to changing climates and human disturbance;
- integrate remote sensing, visual, and paleontological measures of the environment with assessments of biodiversity and landscape change to support conservation;
- provide policy-ready insights for improving the protection of Antarctica.
Read more about the Denman Terrestrial Campaign the Australian Antarctic Program website.
