Antarctic underground

About a year ago, one of the friends reposted a link to an entry in a blog called “Talk with a soil”. There were simply published photographs from expeditions and short replicas of Alexei Lupachev from the Pushchinsky Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems of the RAS Soil Laboratory of Cryology of Soils.

Yes, there is such a laboratory in the scientific and city near Moscow, a thousand kilometers from the nearest glacier or a section of permafrost. It was created by Oleg Makeev in the early 1970s, and in the 1980s was headed by Cryolithologist David Gilichinsky. He gathered a team of scientists and sent them to all ends of the world to study permafrost soils: to the Arctic, in Siberia, to the mountains, on the slopes of volcanoes, and then to Antarctica.

Over the habit of many years, I easily wrote to Alexei Lupachev in a chat. And he replied: "I would love to fly to Yamal tomorrow morning)) will it wait 10 days?" Not a question, wait. Exactly ten days later, Alexei appeared again in the chat and invited to visit IFHBPP. I have been to this institute more than once and already with pleasure imagined how I would go on an old elevator. But a bummer came out. Alexey, a tall, thin guy with a bright curly hair, led me down - into the basement. The inscription "Shelter" blushed on the wall.

- Away from the authorities. Again, there are more places, ”my guide commented.

In the basement room forced by refrigerators, it is really spacious. There is even a piece of window through which the lawn barely begins to green. I brew ground coffee and ask Alexei how old he is.

- 35 will be soon.

- It’s painfully young look like a student.

“And this is a cryoconservation of biological objects in action,” Alexey jokes. - On Yamal, you will work like this from morning to evening at minus 20, you will be involuntarily preserved.

- What did you do on Yamal?

-They called to examine the object under construction, in which the foundation led due to permafrost.

- Did they not find any more specialists there?

- Imagine, it was not found. Here is such a centralization with us. Most research organizations are located either in Moscow or near Moscow.

Alexey tells about himself. As in school, in Orel, I wanted to study biology, but when I learn that I would have to take chemistry, changed my mind and became a geographer. Still preparing a diploma at Oryol State University, he began to look for a place in science. Unlike most classmates who, after the university, went to managers and sellers, Alexey dreamed of distant wanderings and wild places. The farther and deserter, the better.

“Yuri Senkevich, Nikolai Drozdov - these were the idols of childhood,” he explains.

One of the graduates of the faculty was already working in Pushchina, and Alexei decided to go there to the magistracy. I collected the materials of the diploma, I read smart books. The interview was conducted by a doctor of biological sciences from the laboratory of soil cryology Stanislav Gubin. About science not a word, he only asked the young man if he could swim in felt boots in ice water and freshly bear the bear. This turned out to be enough for Alexei immediately wanted to become his employee. Since then, every year has been spending several months in Eastern Siberia - in Chukotka, Yamal, in Yakutia. Since 2009, he has been working in Antarctica. It is difficult to find more wild places.

- I had to swim in the felt boots?

- The expedition is always likely to overturn to ice water. Only we are not any tourists, we minimize this probability.

But seriously, then, as Alexey explained, permafrost soils have been investigated several times less than, for example, chernozems. Entire institutes have been working with chernozems for a hundred years, and Antarctica’s soils a few years ago and were afraid to stutter, so as not to be ridiculed colleagues: “Soils in Antarctica? There are ice and stones. ” Antarctic soils were literally a white spot in Russian science. Scientists from Pushchina appeared on the ice continent in the mid-1990s and since then participate in the development of antarctic soil science. This year they released an extensive monograph on the soils of Antarctica together with scientists from the USA, Germany, England, Portugal and other countries.

“Great,” I say, not yet very understanding the benefits of these studies. - They released - and what's next?

Alexei revived slightly:

- There were no such generalizations, where the accumulated soil information on Antarctica would have not yet been. Nobody, of course, claims to be full, there are still many questions, but the first great approach to the understanding of the soils of Antarctica has been done. With our works, we are slowly accustoming people to be considered this object.

- Why be considered? We will not grow potatoes there? - I do not sleep.

- The agronomic approach does not work here. - Now Alexey jumps up and hangs over me. - If the potato does not grow, then do not study? In extreme areas there are the same processes as in the soils of the middle lanes where potatoes grow, only these processes, due to the difference in climate and other factors, acquire their unique features. Knowledge of black -sight is not enough to judge all the soils. Data from the polar, mountain and desert areas expand our ideas about soils, and no one knows when they come in handy.

To finally convince me, he talks about Chilean women who specifically come to give birth to polar stations so that the child in the passport says: “Place of birth - Antarctica”. - So the process of development is going on. I ask you to give an example of the demand for knowledge about soils in Antarctica, and Alexei says that his article will soon be released in conjunction with zoologists, in which the authors try to understand how life is preserved at low temperatures. It is known that in eternal permafrost organisms survive, even multicellular. But how do they get there and why do they survive? Why do other species die? These issues are open. Alexei compares permafrost with the natural sieve, which outlines organisms.

- There are many types on the surface, and only 10–20% of them remain alive in permafrost. Why only these? Unknown. Our task is to understand what conditions in the soil profile provide survival of living beings.

There will be no methane bomb

Listening to the story of the polar regions, I cannot ignore the issue of climate change. Just in case, I am interested in whether Alexei noticed in four seasons in Antarctica any changes associated with global warming.

- The temperature and glaciers of Antarctica are still stable, but this phenomenon has been noticed: if the average annual temperature rises on the western part of the continent, then in the eastern part it decreases, and vice versa. The shifts of such temperature cycles take place every 5–7 years, and there is no pronounced trend for warming all of Antarctica, ”the scientist says.

He explains that if an increase in the average annual temperature in Antarctica begins, then this will most likely lead to an increase in precipitation, which means to an increase in glaciers, and not to their melting. However, it is stipulated that we are talking about a reasonable degree of warming, when only the softening of the climate occurs.

The eastern sector of the north of Eurasia is also stable, but the west of the Lena River is observed temperature and degradation of permafrost, accompanied by the release of greenhouse gases. But the “methane bomb”, which at one time was actively frightened, will not tear, Lupachev believes. According to the scientist, a large number of facts have now accumulated that an increase in temperature will lead to an increase in precipitation in the region, and this will cause waterlogging. A moss pillow will begin to form on the territory, and peat is deposited - these are natural heat insulators. In swampy areas, the degradation of permafrost is slower.

“Cloval will lead to the accumulation of peat, which means that there will be not an emission of carbon, but its stock,” the scientist explains.

According to Alexei Lupachev, most of the laboratory employees do not share universal hysteria about global warming. The warming happened earlier, although not so sharp. The process is going on, but there will be no catastrophe, according to his colleagues, in any case, now there is no testimony.

"Nanopochees"

In Antarctica, soils are developed where the earth is free from ice - on the islands, in the mountains or on the outskirts of the continent. The power of the soil profile is a few centimeters from the force and occupies small disparate areas. No matter how small these areas, and they serve as a place of attraction of meager Antarctic biota. There are bacteria, poor mesophaun, mosses and other plants. It is the soils that take on the main blow that a person delivers to Antarctica. The international treaty protects it from industrial activities, but in order to harm the continent, it is not necessary to put factories and factories on it, a couple of dozens of polar stations with airfields for aircraft, parking of bulldozer equipment and people are enough.

-My chef once considered the population density in some oases of Antarctica based on their area and the number of people at the stations. It turned out that in some places the population density is almost like in Europe. If a person is stomping forty year round in one place, then you yourself understand how it is with the ecology. So the intimacy of Antarctica is already in many ways a myth, ”says Alexei.

Anything accumulates in Antarctic soils - from diesel fuel to pesticides that treat the agricultural vehicles in Brazil - they get there with the litter of birds.

The soil scholars come to Antarctica on scientific courts and either work all season at any one station, or along with the vessel they go around the continent, exploring the islands and the coast. This year, Alexei Lupachev spent a month at the Belingshausen island station and is now preparing the first soil map of this territory. On the islands of the Antarctic Peninsula, the climate is softer than on the continent, more moisture, so the soil develops better. But still, according to the Russian classification, almost all of them belong to the same type - underdeveloped soils.

“It's even a shame somehow,” says Alexei.

His colleague from the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences Nikita Mergelov distinguishes several subtypes of antarctic soils within the same small inter -city basin. You can’t imagine such a variety in the middle lane. And in Antarctica, on each piece of surface freed from ice, special processes are underway, which lead to different results. There are rocky soils, as in the mountains. There are soils formed in the habitat of the penguins colonies, where the source of organics is the waste of the life of birds, the shell of eggs, feathers remaining from molting. When the colony leaves the raised place, then the first years nothing grows there-the plants simply burn out due to an excess of nitrogen. Then the transformation processes begin, vegetation appears. Or, for example, some territory is freed from the glacier, and first the rocks are free, then colonization begins with mosses, cereals, soil formation is underway. The main role is played by the sea birds that bring turf for the nests with them, and then they are rooted in the rocks.

And the cliffs themselves in Antarctica only seem lifeless, and if you hit them with a hammer, then a whole botanical garden is in the upper layer. So the vegetable and microbial community hides in the upper layers of the rocks from the wind, cold and excess ultraviolet radiation. Plants and microorganisms settle in the upper layers of rocks, in the process of vital activity they destroy rocks, affect the formation of secondary minerals. Then the upper layer disappears, and the community of organisms penetrates deeper into the stones, gradually contributing to the destruction of the rocks. These processes are studied by soil scientists from the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences. They even distinguish a special type called "endolite soils" (Greek. Endo - inside, Lithos - stone).

- This is an innovative approach. So in the classical soil science you can come up with new theories, ”my interlocutor victoriously announces.

All photos are taken on the island of King-Jorde, Western Antarctica
(The location of the Bellingshausen station)