“SCAR’s mission is to advance Antarctic research, including observations from Antarctica, and to promote scientific knowledge, understanding and education on any aspect of the Antarctic region.  To this end, SCAR is charged with the initiation and international co-ordination of Antarctic and Southern Ocean research beneficial to global society.  One of the most effective ways to do this is to bring researchers together to share their latest results, discuss new ideas, and provide opportunities to develop new projects” – www.scar.org

SCAR expanded its biennial business meetings to include an Open Science Conference (OSC).  This year’s open science conference was held from 1 – 10 August 2022, hosted by India. It made it possible for participants and attendees to discuss current results and develop future projects. The conference included plenary, parallel and satellite events, as well as workshops. Business meetings of the science groups were held before the open science conference.

South Africans participated and attended various sessions during the conference (see details below):

• Keynote speaker Katye Altieri: “Stable isotopes as a tracer of reactive nitrogen emissions and aerosol formation in the Southern Ocean”.(link)
• Bettine van Vuuren chaired a mini-symposium. 
• Christel Hansen, Mia Wege, Geoff Grantham, and Charne Lavery were session convenors.
• The business meetings were attended by Bettine van Vuuren, Sarah Fawcett, Ria Olivier, Christel Hansen, Anche Louw, Charney Lavery, Geoff Grantham, Thulani Makhalanyane and Werner Nel.

Presentations delivered:

• Geoff Grantham: The Age And Chemistry Of Granitic Gneisses From The Western H.U.Sverdrupfjella, Maud Terrane, Western Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica. (link)
• Ria Olivier: Digging into the Past; An archive as a tool to compile and establish a timeline of human impact in our polar heritage (link); Collaboration of South African Researchers in an Extreme Cold Environment. (link)
• Marcel du Plessis: Insights from the SO-CHIC Expedition: what have we done and where are we now? (link)
• Morgan Raath-Krüger: Do Anisotropic Processes Influence Fine-Scale Spatial GeneticStructure Of A Keystone Sub-Antarctic Plant Species? (link)
• Charne Lavery: Antarctica, Africa and the Arts (link)
• Adrienne van Eeden Wharton: On Aftermaths and Afterlives, Afterimages and Aftersounds: Mourning-As-Witnessing Ecological Destruction in the SouthernOcean/S
• Daniela Monsanto:  Landscape Genetics Of A Springtail Endemic To Marion Island (link)
• Sophie Kohler: Ice in the Southern Imagination (link)
• Pedro Lebre: Uncovering The Unexplored: The Microbial Ecology Of Sub-AntarcticIsland Soils (link)

E-Posters:

• Liezel Rudolph: A geospatial database for the sub-Antarctic Prince Edward Islands (link)
• Geoff Grantham: The Kuunga Accretionary Complex of Sverdrupfjella, western Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica (link)
• Shilpa Parbhu: Understanding how an invasive springtail adapted to cold sub-Antarctic Marion Island (link)
• Trevor McIntyre: The ontogeny of southern elephant seal foraging migration strategies: finding their way as they go (link)

Antarctic Legacy of South Africa communicated South Africa’s participation and conference-related announcements on Twitter (47 Tweets). A highlight was the session on the discovery of Shackleton’s Endurance, where South Africa was frequently mentioned during the talk.

What is to come:

• SCAR Delegates Meeting (5-7 September 2022)
  • All the best to Bettine van Vuuren and Tracy Klarenbeek attending as SA representatives.

 

All posters and presentations can be found on the ALSA digital archive.

The conference virtual site is still available – if you have missed out on any sessions you can listen to the recordings, and all abstracts and posters can still be downloaded.

 

Ria Olivier, Antarctic Legacy of South Africa, 17 August 2022.