international
polar
foundation

Get a closer look at how the 19-member team makes their journey to Antarctica.

The 19-member team is boarding the plane to Antarctica in Cape Town.

IPF welder and construction worker Baptiste Verdin assists Lampreapineda from Ghent University, who is in Antarctica working on the BELSPO-funded PASPARTOUT project, install a new volitile organic coumpound (VOC) sampler on the roof of the station.

Ghent University researcher Paula Lampreapineda works on a new and improved version of the volatile organic compound autosampler in PEA's garage for the BELSPO-sponsored PASPARTOUT project.

Quentin Vanhellemont from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) samples microbes in a dry valley not far from the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica for the BELSPO-funded EXPOSOILS project.

An open top chamber used in the BELSPO-financed EXPOSOILS project, which is looking at how climate change is affecting microbial communities in specially protected areas not far from the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica. Open top chambers mimic climate change as the temperature inside them gets warmer than the surrounding air.

Quentin Vanhellemont from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) samples microbes from inside an open top chamber, which raises temperatures compared to the outside in order to mimic climate change fo the EXPOSOILS project.

Björn Tytgat from Ghent University adjusts the snow fence in the specially protected area where the BELSPO-funded EXPOSOILS project is examining how microbial communities might change as the climate warms.