TheSnowpit.com News Blog

• The finding of ice on Mars
• Examples of life existing preserved or alive in ice on Earth
• Why search for Extraterrestrial Life?

On June 20,
NASA confirmed the existence of water on Mars. NASA built the Phoenix Lander to find ice, and, having succeeded, the Lander will analyze the ice contents to find signatures of life. Even if found, however, those signatures would only be taken as probability that life exists on Mars, not confirmation. Detailed analysis would hypothetically be left to the next Lander built - with better sterilization and analysis equipment.

This painstaking step-by-step analysis is not new, even to the search for life on Mars. One could view the current Phoenix mission as following up to the 2005 European discovery of possible methane signatures and ice at the equator. Or even more recently, the discovery of silica in the ground up earth behind the Spirit Rover. And this discovery is closely linked to the possible discovery of glaciers on Mars that I covered earlier in the year.

Why Ice?

The discovery of extraterrestrial ice could be the first step to finding extraterrestrial life. On Earth, no life exists without water, and usually where there is water - frozen or otherwise - there is life. Silica, methane - these exist on other planets and on Earth, but they aren't necessary for life here like water is.

Many scientists interested in finding extraterrestrial life are also interested in finding life in ice. Preserved and/or segregated from the rest of the evolutionary chain, life in ice can offer clues to how life began on Earth. In fact, a 1999 NASA precursor study to the Mars missions started by studying preserved life in Russian permafrost.

Not to mention that solid ice at the surface could simply be hiding and insulating liquid water below. Around the same time as the Siberian study above, in 1996 Russia announced that they had discovered a liquid water lake 3km under an ice site they had been drilling at for over twenty years. The ice above the lake has revealed some interesting-looking microbes and later, when the ice just above the lake could be sampled (touting an age of at least a million years and possibly up to 15 million) many other studies began to analyze the microbes found. This ice-insulating-liquid theory extends to other planets, such as Europa, which has been long said to harbor an underground ocean.

Naturally, one must ask the question: "How can life exist in ice?" And, you would not be alone in asking. The mysteries of how life can exist for so long with no light, no obviously plentiful food, and in some of the harshest conditions on the planet, continues to baffle science. But life has, time and again, shown itself more adaptable than expected. After all, Strep bacteria lived for about three decades on the Moon, and just about as soon as NASA discovered archaea - the microbes living in volcano-type conditions - they sent them off into space too.

Why Life?

Although the search for extraterrestrial life could be easily explained by how cool such a discovery would be scientifically, many people forget how core life on Earth and its relation to the Universe is to our cultural values.

As with microbes in ice, discovering extraterrestrial microbes could lead to answers about how (and when) life evolved on Earth. The more simple DNA we have to show as evolutionary 'answers' to different environments, the more pieces we have of the puzzle. And so even life 'discovery precursors' such as nanobacteria and Circadian rhythms have been meticulously sniffed out from meteorites and space probe sensor arrays for that purpose. Even amino acids have been found in meteorites before, but no water, no life - only questions as to how the amino acids got there. All of these are exciting as pieces for the puzzle of life on Earth.

But the real discovery of life on another planet, completely separate from ours, would be the beginning of a true questioning of cultural beliefs. The Drake Equation, a theoretical calculation on how likely intelligent life is to evolve on other planets, would probably be greatly bolstered if the very first planet we looked on - our neighbor - actually contained microbes.

Not to mention that extraterrestrial life has somewhat become the indirect standoff ground between some religion and science. One could say scientists view the possible discovery of extraterrestrial life with almost semi-religious awe and expectation ("It's not a question of if, but when"). With such faith, not discovering extraterrestrial life doesn't mean we should stop looking, it just means we aren't looking hard enough. Whereas for religion, the possible eventual discovery of intelligent life would almost entirely negate the fundamental idea behind Catholic religions. Whoah.

But for now, it's only a block of ice. Who knows what the next step will bring.

A look at the current news sources available around the web...

Well, I'm not going to pretend any longer that I'm the only one out here. I suppose I never really did, but at the same time, I feel I should give credit to those sources who have been around (oftentimes) much longer than I have and also have interesting snow and avalanche-type news to report.

For obtaining the news I link to here, I use Google News, or other such news publishings that can be searched by keyword (mostly the Associated Press). Of course when I am trying to track certain information, I always check the real source on The Westwide Avalanche Network. Sometimes, folks are kind enough to send me articles that I otherwise wouldn't have found, and I link to them here. I usually try to keep to electronic sources even though I know they are a small subset of the available information...however, they hopefully make for an easier job of reading.

My news blog is sort of a mix, like other blogs out there. Probably the most famous of the blogs right now is Lou Dawson's Backcountry Blog, in which he also has a
section dedicated to avalanches. What a great writer. Speaking of great writers, the folks at Telemarktips.com also post newsworthy topics concerning avalanches every so often, and their avalanche community bulletin board is a great place to learn about current goings-on by word-of-mouth. Similar, but more cut-and-dry is an avalanche news listing from a Brighton ski patroller at BeaconReviews.com.

Of course, let's not limit ourselves to the States, after all Pistehors has a great avalanche news section for the Europeans in the crowd. Plus, CSAC.org posts international incidents on its news page, and the author Jim Frankenfield keeps his own brief blog.

And, as you may have noticed, not everything that gets included in this blog has to do directly with avalanches. For general snow-related news items, I'm not even going to pretend that I can include everything here, but again, there are a few places I find interesting stuff on. The folks at ScienceDaily have a Snow and Arctic section that has some basic stuff. Unexpectedly, another news source is Slashdot, which covers everything nerdy, mostly electronics, but also including snow. Some people live in snow and love it, and their blogs follow their snowy lives, such as this one in Alaska, and this one in New Mexico.

Heck, even the lovely nerds at MAKE magazine included a great run of how to build your own snow bike. Blogs on GIS systems such as Google Earth often include snow and ice in their data surveys. And of course such sources usually include cool GIS news too.

Hmmm...what else... Global warming seems to be such a provocative media topic that you have to take specific pains to avoid it. And if you keep your eyes open and your ears peeled, interesting snow nerds and their pursuits can come from just
about anywhere. Happy surfing!

• Various articles provide closing thoughts to the past winter season
• New Zealand avalanche control program comes up for award
• Two fatalities in Pyrenees and one in India
• Avalanche road closure in Montana and snow predicted in the Olympics and Cascades

Summer is here in the Northern Hemisphere, and many are providing closing thoughts on the past season (linked also from Backpacker Magazine). I have my own opinions on the subject, but with the heat already arrived, it's probably time to turn thoughts to cooler topics.

After all, winter is just starting in New Zealand. Their avalanche prediction program for Milford Sound has been put up for an award, with the hopes of gaining international appreciation for the project. The program has been in place for a while, but Jordy Hendrikx, a recent graduate of the University of Cantebury, talks extensively about the program and how it can be improved, saying: "The meteorological data for the Milford Road is now of a sufficient time length and quality to allow a thorough statistical analysis, in particular the use of discriminant analysis or classification trees." Pretty cool.

However, sadly, avalanches continue to wreak their havoc. Two members of the
Halle Orchestra perished in a Pyrenees avalanche last Wednesday; both appeared to be avid outdoorspeople. In India on June 4, one fatality and nine injured were reported below the Gomukh glaciers outside of Gangotri. So sad.

And oddly enough, despite (or perhaps because of) it being firmly June weather in the States, an avalanche has closed Beartooth Highway in Montana. The avalanche occurred on June 1, and their transportation site has some pretty cool slide-clearing videos. Crazy. Along those lines, snow is being forecast for the North Cascades, with a few inches predicted for Stevens Pass and a couple feet for the Olympics! I guess winter never truly ends...