Processing ice from the glacial period

Sepp studying a section of ice for air bubbles and clatherates.

Science is getting very exciting as we enter the glacial period where there are big and abrupt climate changes recorded in the ice cores. Today we processed ice from the Last glacial maximum 23,000 years before present. Sepp prepares sections of the ice on glass plates to study the air bubbles and the clathrates in the ice. The ice looks clear – but a closer look reveals layers with small air bubbles and layers without.

What we have done today:

1. Drilling with the NEEM long drill: 19.98 m. Drillers depth: 1610.56 m.
2. Logging 24.22 m of core. Logging depth: 1628.39 m.
3. CFA analysis: measuring pit samples and shallow cores.
4. Processing 19.80 m of core. Processing depth: 1573.55 m (bag 2861).
5. Finishing shelves in carpenter's garage.
6. Preparing sauna for use.
7. GPS measurements of (WPN01,WPN02,WPN21,WPN22,WPN029,WPN119,WPN209,WPN299) successfully completed.

Weather: Again a sunny day with high scattered clouds. During late evening a band of clouds is seen coming in from the S. Temperatures between -13°C and –5°C. Wind: 5-14 kn from SSE. Very early morning ice fog and very late evening ice fog.

FL, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen

The chefs Vasilis, Ramon, Emilie, Tim, Jesper and Christo prepared an excellent 5 course dinner for us on Saturday night. A very big THANKS from everybody in camp.