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The researcher and member of PolarCSIC, Carlota Escutia, awarded the Rei Jaume I Prize 2023
Our colleague Carlota Escutia has been recognized this afternoon with the 2023 Rei Jaume I Award, in a ceremony held at the Palau de la Generalitat in Valencia. After nearly three hours of deliberation, the hundred scientists and experts who make up the jury, including 21 Nobel laureates, have chosen the winners in each of the six categories from among the 222 nominations submitted.
Carlota Escutia is a research professor at the Instituto Andeluz de Ciencias de la Tierra (IACT) in Granada. She is internationally recognized for her innovative research and leadership in the study of the Antarctic ice sheet and the dynamics of the Southern Ocean during past warmer periods than the present. One of her most significant contributions is her leadership as the co-chief scientist of Expedition 318 of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), which collected sediment cores from the Antarctic margin of the Wilkes Land.
Through her co-leadership of SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research), Escutia helped coordinate research across a wide range of disciplines, including geology, oceanography, and atmospheric science.
Congratulations on this well-deserved recognition, Carlota!
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ARICE-Pontant Antarctic Campaing: two scientists of the ICM selected to participate
Two scientists of the polar team of the Institute of Marine Sciences CSIC have been selected to participare in the ARICE-Ponant Antarctic campaign. Marta Umbert and Anna Olivé will participate in the leg in Snowhill Island & Weddell Sea from 17/11-29/11/2023. The main objective of their research project is to analyze the salinity distribution close to the ice edge using the available measurement capacities aboard the "Le Commandant Charcot" Ship.
The ARICE is a strategy for meeting the needs of marine based research in the Arctic, funded by the H2020 Integrating Activities for Starting Communities and coodinated by the Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Center for Polar- and Marine Research (AWI) in Germany.
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Antarctic Campaign of the ROCK-EATERS Project 2023
Recently, members of the Microbial Ecology and Geomicrobiology groups (MNCN-CSIC) and the Microbiome Analysis Laboratory (CNB-CSIC), namely Asunción de los Ríos, Javier Tamames, and Fernando Garrido (MNCN-CSIC), participated in the Spanish Antarctic campaign 2022-23 as part of the ROCK-EATERS project, which is funded by the State Research Agency (AEI, MICINN). Upon their return, they expressed great satisfaction with the highly successful campaign. With the assistance of the crew at Gabriel de Castilla Base and the personnel at the UTM of Juan Carlos I Base, all planned samplings were conducted, enabling them to gain a better understanding of bioweathering processes and primary succession in the region, both of which are key objectives of the ROCK-EATERS project.
In addition to the planned samplings, the team collected lava fields on Deception Island and areas in front of retreating glaciers on Livingston Island, utilizing them as natural laboratories for analyzing the freshly collected samples.
They employed a combination of technologies to extract microbial DNA, purify it, and even sequence it on-site using a portable sequencer. To facilitate this process, they deployed a mini laboratory that could operate autonomously in the field and relied on their own reliable software, SqueezeMeta (Tamames & Puente-Sanchez, 2019), which played a crucial role in streamlining and automating the sequence analysis and assignment. The team noted that never before have they been able to generate such comprehensive information about the composition and function of a microbial community within such a short timeframe. This success in characterizing their collected samples ensures the efficacy of the sampling campaigns.
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2nd Conference on Strategic Prospects of HUBS/PTI
The 2nd Conference on Strategic Prospects of HUBS and PTIs, organised by VAACT took place on June 1st and 2nd in Sevilla. On this occasion, the coordinators of PolarCSIC PTI, Ricardo León Buendía and María Gema Llorens, together with the manager Teresa Madurell, had the opportunity to participate in this reflective event aimed at identifying the strengths and weaknesses of these unique structures.
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GI-GEOMAR (IGME), from the Arctic to Antarctica
On May 12th, the Applied Geology to Marine Resources and Extreme Environments group from IGME presented their activities to the rest of the members of PolarCISC. This group has become recently a new member of our platform.
The Marine Geology Resources and Extreme Environments Research Group at IGME is cooperating with researchers from INGEMMET (Peru) and Universidade de Évora (Portugal) studying the characteristics and evolution of permafrost around Machu Picchu Research Station (King George Island, South Shetland Islands). The results of these investigations will be presented at the ICOP2024 (International Conference of Permafrost): ICOP 2024 - Whitehorse, YT - Canadian Permafrost Association.
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DICHOSO project visual presentation
The project Contribución de las Masas de Agua de Isla Decepción a los Inventarios Biogeoquímicos del Océano Austral: Balance Actual y Tendencias Futuras (DICHOSO) has launched a new visual presentation. Antonio Tovar Sánchez and Emma Huertas Cabilla are the principal investigators of this project, which will end in 2026.
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PTI PolarCSIC welcomes a new external collaborator
The Numerical Simulation in Science and Engineering Group at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, led by Francisco Navarro, is a new external collaborator of the PTI PolarCISC. Wellcome aboard!
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Members of PolarCSIC meet the Catalan Delegation in the Nordic and Baltic Countries
On May 19th, the meeting of Catalan research groups investigating the Arctic took place, organized by the Delegation of the Government to the Nordic and Baltic Countries of the Government of Catalonia. Some of these researchers are members of the PTI PolarCSIC. During this meeting, the researchers presented their activities in the Arctic.
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A new award for our photographic exhibition "Una mirada polar"
The photographic exhibition "Una mirada polar" receives the special mention at the CSIC Awards for Scientific Dissemination and Citizen Science. Congratulations!
You can download the exhibition catalogue at high resolution here
A version of the catalogue with interactive menus can also be downloaded here |
