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The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica are among a rare group of ice-free regions lying along the coast of an otherwise ice-burdened continent. For Antarctica, these are highly atypical regions of exposed rock and barren soils. Within their 4,000 km(2) expanse, the valleys contain a number of permanently ice-covered, closed-basin lakes, which range from freshwater to highly saline environments. This paper examines the physical structure, geochemistry, nutrient and trace metal dynamics, biology, and hydrologic history of saline Lake Bonney (both east and west lobes), Fryxell, Vanda, and Joyce and provides an update to recently published volumes on these pristine systems.