November 20th, 2015 – Two weeks in tents “armed” with cameras and tablet, maps and images. But above all, the curiosity to research and discover something new. Gianluca Cornamusini, Matteo Perotti and Sonia Sandroni are researchers at the University of Siena traveling to Antarctica to take part in the 31st Italian National Research Program Mission in Antarctica. The geological research expedition, supported by ENEA and funded by the Ministry of Education, University and Research, aims to reconstruct important events in the geological history of a large section of Antarctica. These events are related to the erosion, transport and accumulation of glaciers during and after the lifting of the Transantarctic Mountains, the main paleo-environmental process documented from the Precambrian to Jurassic. Living for two weeks in tents, in a remote field more than 200 km distant from the base, Cornamusini, Perotti and Sandroni will return to Allan Hills, where last January they found the abundant and well preserved remains of a fossil forest. The group will reach its destination by using instrumented helicopters with cameras and a tablet with all the available maps, including satellite images at high resolution. All live news, images and discoveries that will emerge from their daily survey will be posted on the http://geoantarctica.wordpress.com and www.facebook.com/geoantarctica. The blog and Facebook page will be updated by the Italian base Mario Zucchelli and, thanks to a dedicated satellite connection, by the team in Allan Hills. The research project, coordinated by Franco Talarico, Professor of Petrography and Petrology in the Department of Physical Sciences, Earth and Environment, involves other researchers at the University of Siena, researchers from the universities of Padua, Roma Tre and the CNR , as well as science and geography teachers of two secondary schools in the cities of Prato and Pinerolo. The expedition will come to an end in mid-January 2016 (red)
