NIU Today

Brian Guthrie, a senior NIU geology major, says his recent experience in the Antarctic as part of a major research team was, well, out of this world. The icy desert continent “was like nothing I’d ever seen before,” says the 23-year-old St. Charles native, who spent more than a month in Antarctica. At one point,...

A lounging Weddell seal, wandering Adelie penguin, stark white landscapes, the Transantarctic Mountains and lots of scientists in action. All of that and more can be found on this micro-blog created by NIU Board of Trustees Professor Reed Scherer in geology. Scherer just recently returned from a historic research expedition in the Antarctic. He was...

A team of scientists that includes Northern Illinois University researchers has successfully drilled through the overlying Antarctic ice sheet and sampled directly the waters and sediments of Subglacial Lake Whillans. The effort is making headlines today: It marks the first successful retrieval of clean whole samples from an Antarctic subglacial lake, according to a statement...

For someone who isn’t fond of cold weather, Brian Guthrie sure seems excited about the prospect of working in one of the coldest, driest and most remote environments on the planet. A senior geology major at Northern Illinois University, Guthrie definitely has an adventurous side. He sports a Mohawk, zips to classes via skateboard and...

They haven’t put NIU’s new 28-foot-long, 2,200-pound robotic submarine in the water yet, but geologists Ross Powell and Reed Scherer have already made a big splash. The submarine, which will be used to explore melting near the base of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, was a big hit as it was unveiled in mid-December at the American...