Hydrothermal vents at Mt Erebus, Antarctica. Five scientists from Oregon, Maine and California (and their team mascot “da Microbe”) traveled to Antarctica to study the “Rock Bottom” of the food chain in the extreme environments of McMurdo Sound. GOLF-439 scientists were based at McMurdo station of the US Antarctic Program (USAP) on Ross Island from where they will embark on trips to remote locations and field camps in the Antarctic Dry Valleys, at Cape Evans, on Mount Erebus and in the Royal Society Range. Targets of their investigations will include moorings below the ice of Lake Fryxell (Taylor Valley), experiments below the sea-ice using SCUBA diving, hydrothermal vents and ice caves in the glaciers of Mt. Erebus, as well as seasonal creeks running through volcanic terrain that are fed by glacial melting in the short Antarctic summer.