GREAT NEWS to report! The SPICE cores made it safely to the National Ice Core Lab in Denver, CO on March 4th. They made the journey from the South Pole via the resupply vessel and left the same day I left McMurdo (Feb. 2). They will remain at the National Ice Core Lab for processing this summer. I will be part of the Core Processing Line (CPL) that will take place in May-June of this summer and last for approximately 3 weeks. During the CPL, all the cores get remeasured and cut into pieces for various universities to do research with it. We'll get our samples back in Irvine around July! If you're ever in the Denver area, I highly suggest you contact the National Ice Core Lab and schedule a tour! You can walk through the freezers kept below -25 Celsius and see the archive of all the ice cores the U.S. has drilled. They store over 17,000 meters of ice (about 10.5 miles) in their freezers.
|
AuthorMindy Nicewonger, PhD is an earth and climate scientist. She is a passionate science educator and tutor. Banner photo: Mindy standing in front of the C-130 Hercules in McMurdo, Antarctica (Nov. 2014).
Archives
April 2018
|