By Alabama Public Radio
Birmingham, AL – Marine biologists James McClintock and Chuck Amsler, and six other team members, will leave next week for the National Science Foundation's Palmer Station.
The station has a laboratory and housing for up to 44 people. It's on a peninsula that points toward the southern tip of South America.
Most of the plants and sea creatures they're looking for can be found in the waters just offshore from the station. Divers collect the sea creatures and plants and bring them back to the laboratory.
Other team members from the University of Alabama at Birmingham include Amsler's wife, Maggie Amsler, a veteran of 15 Antarctica trips who also is McClintock's research assistant, and UAB graduate students Craig Aumack and Philip Bucolo, who will be making their first trips.