Antarctic soils - characterisation and vulnerability to changes

Dr Megan Balks
Drilling to establish permafrost temperature monitoring in the Wright Valley
Victoria Valley soil climate monitoring station

Project leader

Dr Megan Balks, Earth and Ocean Science Department, University of Waikato

History of the project:

Megan has been involved in research related to Antarctic soils since
1990 and she has completed 18 fieldtrips to "the ice". A large
portion of her work has related to assessing the impacts of human
activities on Antarctic soils and terrestrial environments. Her
work commenced researching impacts on soil properties, and the ice
content of permafrost, following physical disturbance with Drs Graeme
Claridge and Ian Campbell - two pioneers of Antarctic soil
science. Megan has since had a long association with Landcare
Research where her collaborative work (led by Dr Jackie Aislabie from
Landcare Research) has focused on disturbances such as effects of oil
spills, and the rate of recovery of soils from both hydrocarbon
contamination and other disturbances. More recently her work has
focused on better defining the spatial distribution of soils to
underpin interpretive maps on soil vulnerability to disturbance and
to better characterise the extent and distribution of Antarctic soils.

Dr Balks has also been part of the establishment and management of a
network of Antarctic soil/permafrost climate monitoring stations in
collaboration with Landcare Research and the USDA. The climate
station data contribute to the CALM (Circumpolar Active Layer
Monitoring) network (http://www.udel.edu/Geography/calm/about/permafrost.html).

Much of her work over the last few years has fitted within the
auspices of the Latitudinal Gradient Programme (www.lgp.aq). Megan
has also been an active member of the ANTPAS (Antarctic Permafrost
and Soils) group - an international group who bring Antarctic soil
and permafrost researchers together working towards a common goal of
establishing a co-ordinated soil map of the entire Antarctic
Continent and co-ordinating soil and permafrost temperature data
collection. (see http://erth.waikato.ac.nz/antpas/ .)

Current work

Megan is currently contracted to the Landcare Research FRST funded
programme entitled "Antarctic Environmental Domains" (http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/research/soil/Ant_soils/eda.asp)
. Dr Balks is currently supervising two PhD students and one MSc
student working on Antarctic related projects. Malcolm McLeod is
currently working on soil mapping in the Wright Valley. Tanya
O'Neill is working on the rates of recovery of soils following human
disturbances and Josh Scarrow is working on the soil characterisation
and soil landscape relationships in the Beardmore Glacier Region of
Antarctica.