While out at WAIS Shelley and I had the opportunity to tour the ice core drilling operation. The logistics around a project like this are quite impressive. The project is attempting to recover about 3 km of ice. This will allow the scientists to analyze the climate of this region back to about 100,000 years before present. This season the team was able to reach down to about 1.5 km. This was a critical season because the team was drilling through the brittle ice portion of the core. The ice is very fragile in this region. Additionally, the pressure of the air bubbles inside of the ice is higher than the surrounding air pressure. This causes some difficulties, because if the ice cores are not handled correctly the core can explode. Therefore the ice cores are stored in the "freezer" at WAIS for a year in order to for the ice to relax before being transported. The first picture below shows the ice core samples stored for the winter over season. The second pictures shows you the "freezer" that the cores are stored in. It is literally a whole dug in the snow.
Here is the project website if you are interested.
http://www.waisdivide.unh.edu/
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