Hypothesis. Anthropogenic effects in Antarctic’s environment can be found on distances more than 10 km away from base stations, but do not affect ecosystem considerably. Depending on the trace of robot it also can be found out that snow located further from seaside is more polluted than the one that is near.

Major sources of Scientific Base contamination are energy generation, constructions, transport and sewage. As the chemical contamination is long-lived in Antarctica, influence of sources of pollution shall be controlled; mechanisms and implementation of environmental management shall be developed.

Following approach of contamination measurements in a sample collected by rover is proposed. Lets assume, that rover will bring reasonable amount of samples to make experiment. The method with blank sample collected manually to verify if rover contaminates samples can be used.

First to analyse snow sample, it shall be turned into water. Then it shall be found out if the sample has specific and most known purgeable or Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC's), which are normally found in air pollution (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons that is contained in diesel for example). These compounds are mostly created in biological processes. Because of the harsh weather in Antarctica there are almost no biological VOC's, meaning that any type of this organic compounds in the sample are caused by human activities there. Once the VOC's are identified, spectrophotometer can be used to measure the quantity and the specific types of this compounds in the sample.

Most experiments that are conducting in Antarctica connected to bacteria now are dedicated to find them in soil because it is much better place for bacteria to survive. But some prokaryotic bacteria (Cryobacterium psychrophilum, Janthino bacterium lividum, Variovorax paradoxus) as well as eukaryotic can be found in snow. These bacteria can tell us about biological contaminations that were brought by human as well. Moreover, I will try to find some bacteria that are connected to human waste products and check if they can survive in snow. For detecting bacteria I will use MinION DNA sequencer and internet data base of bacteria.

Before going I will prepare all necessary equipment and materials about Bacteria and VOC's. If experiment will give good results, it would be better to check samples deeply with Gas chromatographer, for this purpose I will have to save samples with glass vials, thus I need to take them as well. I would also like to have some additional components for rover in case of crashing and laboratory equipment (e.g. gloves).

According to specification, spectrometer requires 650 mW, DNA sequencers can be powered from laptop and needs 1W. Thus I will need 43W per 2 days to charge laptop and spectrometer. I will use wifi to get more information about molecules and bacteria I will found, but as I will take all necessary documentation, it will not take much.

With described approach and equipments I will be able to prove my hypothesis.

References

1. WARWICK F. VINCENT (2000), Evolutionary origins of Antarctic microbiota: invasion, selection and endemism, Science 12, 374-385
2. Carpenter EJ, Lin S, Capone DG (2000) Bacterial activity in South pole snow
3. Cowan DA, Ah Tow L (2004) Endangered antarctic environments. Ann Rev Microbiol 58:649–690
4. Baross et al., 1975Baross, J. A. Hanus, F. J. and Morita, R. Y. (1975) Survival of human enteric and other sewage microorganisms under simulated deep-sea conditions. Applied Microbiology30, 309–318
5. Delille, D. and Perret, E. (1989) Influence of temperature on the growth potential of southern polar bacteria. Microbial Ecology18, 117–123