Gallery

The borehole extension casing at WAIS Divide, Antarctica. Photo: Jim Koehler.

The DISC Drill's winch drum successfully removed from the drilling arch. Photo: Don Voigt.

Lifting the DISC Drill's winch drum out of the winch pit. Photo: Don Voigt.   

View of the inside of the drilling arch showing the uneven deformation/buckling of the floor. Photo: Don Voigt.

View of the inside of the drilling side of the arch showing the buckling of the railings due to the uneven buckling/deformation of the floor. Photo: Don Voigt.

View of the inside of the borehole logging tent and the USGS Deep Logging Winch. Photo: Don Voigt.

View of the remaining items inside the core handling arch. Photo: Don Voigt.

View of the arch. Photo: Don Voigt.

Don Voigt detonates charges for the I-161 borehole active seismic experiment. Photo: Don Voigt.

The power lines to the arch. Photo: Don Voigt.

Sled for the active seismic experiment. Photo: Don Voigt.

Heavy drifting on the warming Jamesway. Photo: Don Voigt.

Heavy drifting at the doors to the drilling side of the arch. Photo: Don Voigt.

A scientist stays warm in their "Big Red" parka. Photo: Don Voigt.

Assembling the borehole logging tent. Photo: Don Voigt.

View of the (buried) arch at the end of the 2012-2013 field season. The power poles on the right-hand side of the photo lead back towards camp. The ventilation conduit in the center of the photo marks the start of the drilling arch, which then runs 100-feet to the left. The core handling arch runs to the right of the conduit for 84-feet. Photo: Don Voigt.

On Monday, 17 December 2012 at 2:10 PM the first-ever replicate ice core taken from the high-side of the borehole was successfully drilled from 3001 meters depth in the WAIS Divide Ice Core borehole in West Antarctica. The first replicate core was ~80% of a full round core, but as the drilling continued on the new path 100% round cores were obtained. Photo: Jay Johnson/IDDO.

Replicate coring system actuator section. Photo: Chris Gibson, UW-Madison/IDDO.

Replicate coring system broaching head. Photo: Chris Gibson, UW-Madison/IDDO.

Replicate coring system milling head. Photo: Chris Gibson, UW-Madison/IDDO.

IDDO Engineer, Chris Gibson, excitedly holds the first replicate core recovered with the replicate coring system. Photo: Chris Gibson, UW-Madison/IDDO.

Brad Markle and Emily Longano drill a shallow ice core on the main ice divide of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Photo: Graham Colegrave.

Jeremy Miner and Ross Beaudette drill a shallow ice core, WAIS Divide, Antarctica. Photo: Bradley Markle.

John Fegyveresi drills a shallow ice core near the main WAIS Divide Camp, West Antarctica. Photo: Bradley Markle.

John Fegyveresi, Emily Longano, and Brad Markle sample a snow pit for stable isotopes and density measurements, WAIS Divide Antarctica. Photo: Graham Colegrave.

Brad Markle transports shallow ice cores back to WAIS Divide Camp from a field site. Photo Graham Colegrave.

Brad Markle prepares to transport shallow ice cores back to WAIS Divide Camp from a field site. Photo Graham Colegrave.

Building a logger housing-box. Photo: John Fegyveresi.

Surface "glaze" photographed this year on Dec 23rd - 24th (GMT). Photo: John Fegyveresi.

Programming and testing a logger. Photo: John Fegyveresi.

Setting up logger station (drilled 5-meter hole can be seen). Photo: John Fegyveresi.

Installing the thermistor string. Photo: John Fegyveresi.

View of the thermistor set-up after installation is finished. Photo: John Fegyveresi.

Jeff Severinghaus (Chief Scientist for Borehole Deepening and Replicate Coring), Krissy Dahnert (Lead Driller), and Don Voigt (WAIS Divide 2011-12 Chief Scientist) celebrate reaching 3,405 meters depth. Photo: John Fegyveresi.

Logan Mitchell, John Fegyveresi, Don Voigt, and Gifford Wong celebrate finishing the WAIS Divide borehole at 3,405 meters depth. Photo: John Fegyveresi.

The IDDO 2011-2012 drilling team. Photo: Kristina Slawny.

Final core of the WAIS Divide deep borehole. Photo: Kristina Slawny.

Don Voigt examins an ice core. Photo: Gifford Wong.

IDDO driller Elizabeth Morton assists with borehole logging operations. Photo: Kristina Slawny

Logging shelter located adjacent to the drilling arch. The logging cable exits the shelter, passes over a sheave wheel (inside a protective box), before dropping into the arch. With the shelter, logging operations were able to continue unimpeded through the poor weather that was prevalent during the 2011-12 field season. Photo: Gary Clow.

Group photo of the 2011-12 borehole loggers. Shown, left to right, are: Dan Kluskiewicz (U. Washington), Jeff Severinghaus (Scripps Inst. Oceanography), Ed Waddington (U. Washington), Don Voigt (Penn State), Ryan Bay (UC-Berkeley), Gary Clow (USGS), Sridhar Anandakrishnan (Penn State), Leo Peters (Penn State), and Elizabeth Morton (IDDO). Photo: Gary Clow.

Josh Goetz drills a hole through the drilling arch roof/ceiling for the logging cable. Photo: Kristina Slawny

The front door of Krissy's tent after one day of drifting while at work. This was a common occurance during the season. Photo: Kristina Slawny

Spooling on the new 4200-meter-long drill cable. Photo: Kristina Slawny

Unspooling of the old 3400-meter-long drill cable from the DISC Drill's winch drum. Photo: Kristina Slawny

Gifford Wong and John Fegyveresi sample a snowpit for density, major ions, water isotopes, particulates, trace elements, and microbial loading. Photo: John Fegyveresi.

Digging out the doors to the drilling and core handling arch at the beginning of the field season. Photo: Kristina Slawny

Significant hoar layer in snowpit wall. Photo: John Fegyveresi

Large crust in snowpit wall. Photo: John Fegyveresi

Possible melt layer documented in shallow firn core. Photo: John Fegyveresi

The five-meter-long sonic-logging tool is about to be lowered into the drill slot. In the foreground, Dan is holding the transmitter section. The flexible tan hose-like sections separate the transmitter and the receivers, and prevent propagation of sound waves directly through the tool itself. Photo: Ed Waddington

Don Voigt logs the very final section of ice from the WAIS Divide deep ice core. Photo: Don Voigt

The WAIS Divide field team celebrates reaching 3,331 meters depth. Photo Credit: Jay Johnson.

Jay Johnson (IDDO), Kristina Slawny (IDDO), Ken Taylor (SCO), Gifford Wong (SCO), and Brian Bencivengo (NICL) celebrate reaching 3331 meters. Photo: Kristina Slawny.

The rear door (drilling side) of the arch. Photo: Kristina Slawny.

A one-meter long section of ice core with a dark ash layer. Photo: Heidi Roop.

Cutting a 3-meter-long drill run of ice into 1-meter-long sections. Photo: Mark Twickler.

Freshly drilled ice core sticking out of the core barrel. Photo: Mark Twickler.

The kinked cable. Photo: Kristina Slawny.

The re-terminated (farmor termination) cable. Photo: Kristina Slawny.

The American Flag waves proudly at WAIS Divide camp, Antarctica. Photo: Gifford Wong

A researcher examines layers in a snow pit deposited by different storms. Photo: Kendrick Taylor.

Digging a snow pit for the study of physical properties. Photo: John Fegyveresi.

Kristina (Dahnert) Slawny and Jay Johnson stand next to the DISC Drill. Krissy and Jay are from the Ice Drilling Design and Operations (IDDO) group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and are the lead drillers at WAIS Divide. Photo: Jay Johnson

Net radiometer and double-pyranometer setup. Photo: John Fegyveresi.

First view of the arch facility by the camp put-in crew. To get a feel for the amount of drifting, this photo is taken looking at the end of the drilling arch, which is 27 feet tall. Photo: RPSC.

Pointing at an obvious thick crust in the snow pit backlit wall Photo: John Fegyveresi.

Distinct ash layer in the WDC06A core. Photo: John Fegyveresi.

A patchy/splotchy ash layer. Photo: John Fegyveresi.

A possibly folded ash layer – this gave us evidence that deformation was starting to become a factor in the core. However, no evidence of large disruptions were observed. Photo: John Fegyveresi.

2009/2010 WAIS Divide Field Team. Photo Credit: John Fegyveresi

2009/2010 Science Technicians and NICL Staff. Back row (L to R): John Fegyveresi, Tommy Cox, Heid Roop, Maria Banks, Bo Vinther. Front row (L to R): Brian Bencivengo, Thomas Bauska, Bess Koffman, Ryan Banta, Peter Neff, Bruce Vaughn, Anais Orsi, Geoff Hargreaves. Photo Credit: Bruce Vaughn

Jay Johnson and Kristina Dahnert work on terminating the new 3800m drill cable. Photo Credit: Kristina Dahnert

The barrel of the DISC drill with a 122 mm diameter ice core inside. Credit: Kristina Dahnert

The new core barrel and cutter head for 2009, showing smaller kerf. Photo: Bruce Vaughn

Jay Johnson and Nicolai Mortensen tension the new cable onto the spool with 5,000 lbs of tension. Photo: Bruce Vaughn

LC-130s at WAIS Divide camp. Photo: John Fegyveresi

LC-130s at WAIS Divide camp. Photo: John Fegyveresi

Josh Goetz works inside the MECC. Photo: Kristina Slawny

With only 34 days of drilling, and drilling 24 hours/day, the 2009-2010 field team was able to recover more than 1000 meters of ice (1049 meters to be exact). Photo: Kristina (Dahnert) Slawny

2000-meters depth is reached! Photo: Kristina (Dahnert) Slawny

Dark tephra layer at ~2548-meters depth. Photo: Anais Orsi

Bess Koffman prepares a snowpit sample for density measurement. Photo: Tommy Cox

2010 Field Leaders: Krissy (Dahnert) Slawny [Lead Driller, 2nd-half of season], Bija Sass [Camp Supervisor], Anais Orsi [Science Coordination Office Field Rep, 2nd-half of season], and Theresa Tran [Camp Manager]. Photo: Tommy Cox

A run of core with a bottom break sticking out of the DISC Drill. Photo: Peter Neff

A run of core with a bottom break sticking out of the DISC Drill. Photo: Tommy Cox

Beautiful sky at WAIS Divide camp. Photo: Kristina (Dahnert) Slawny

Beautiful sky at WAIS Divide camp. Photo: Kristina (Dahnert) Slawny

John Fegyveresi begins digging a snow pit at WAIS Divide for studies of the physical properties of the snow and ice. Photo: John Fegyveresi.

John Fegyveresi digging a snow pit at WAIS Divide for studies of the physical properties of the snow and ice. Photo: John Fegyveresi.

The finished snow pit after it has been converted to a back lit snow pit and sampled for density and isotopes. Photo: John Fegyveresi.

Bija and Erika under the power pole and service cable at WAIS Divide. The power poles and service cable wintered well at WAIS Divide. Photo: Theresa Tran.

First view of the arch (from the core handling side) after the 2009 winter. Photo: Theresa Tran.

NSF Artists and Writers Program award recipient Anna McKee sketches at WAIS Divide during the 2009-2010 field season.. Photo: Anna McKee

View of the camp modules, equipment, and cargo line after wintering over at WAIS Divide. All cargo, modules, and equipment wintered well with minimal drifting. Photo: Theresa Tran.

View of the CAT 953 after wintering over at WAIS Divide. The CAT 953 wintered well with minimal drifting, allowing the put-in team to get it (and the Tucker Sno-Cat) up and running in record time. Photo: Theresa Tran.

View of the Tucker Sno-Cat after wintering over at WAIS Divide. The Tucker wintered well with minimal drifting, allowing the put-in team to get it (and the CAT 953) up and running in record time. Photo: Theresa Tran.

New Year's Eve at WAIS Divide. Photo: Brian Bencivengo

The arch at the start of the 2008-2009 field season. Photo: Matthew Kippenhan

View of the drilling end of the arch. Photo: John Fegyveresi

Geoff Hargreaves, Ken Taylor, Anais Orsi, and Bruce Vaughn. Photo: Julie Palais

Julie Palais, Kendrick Taylor, and Bruce Vaughn at WAIS Divide. Photo: Julie Palais

One-meter-long sections of the WAIS Divide ice core. The ice cores are 122 mm (4.8 inches) in diameter, about the size of a CD or DVD. Photo: John Fegyveresi

The core handling side of the arch facility. Photo: Chad Naughton/NSF

Side view of the galley at WAIS Divide. Photo: Chad Naughton/NSF

The ice core storage basement at WAIS Divide. Photo: Chad Naughton/NSF

Science technicians cutting the ice into 1 meter long sections. Photo: Chad Naughton/NSF

Cargo being loaded onto a LC-130. Photo: Chad Naughton/NSF

A clear day at WAIS Divide camp. Photo: John Fegyveresi

A stormy day at WAIS Divide camp. Photo: John Fegyveresi

A sun dog at WAIS Divide camp. Photo: John Fegyveresi

Inside a backlit snowpit at WAIS Divide. Photo: John Fegyveresi

Back at a laboratory in the USA, an ice core sample melts under vacuum to release the ancient air bubbles for isotopic analysis. Photo: Anais Orsi

Anais Orsi adjusting the depth of her borehole thermometer. Photo: Anais Orsi

Gifford Wong marks the azimuth of the ice core. Photo: Anais Orsi

2007-2008 WAIS Divide group photo. Credit: Brian Bencivengo

Back row (L to R): Nicole Reed, Bill Mason, Sylvia Englund, Trevor Popp, Paul Sendelbach, Dave Ferris, Tony Wendricks, Michael Jayred, Charlie Bentley (front), Scott Haman (back), John Mischler, Tanner Kuhl, Laurent Augustin, Gabrielle Dreyfus. Front row (L to R): Joe Souney, Ursula Rick, Jay Johnson, Kristina Dahnert, Inger Seierstad, Rebecca Anderson, Anais Orsi. Not shown: Kendrick Taylor, Zach Smith, Jim Koehler, Nicolai Mortensen, John Robinson, Brent Folmer, Geoff Hargreaves, Brian Bencivengo Credit: Joseph Souney

Ice Coring and Drilling Services (ICDS) group photo (L to R): Paul Sendelbach, Kristina Dahnert, Bill Mason, Michael Jayred, Laurant Augustin, James Koehler, Jay Johnon, John Robinson, Tanner Kuhl, Nicolai Mortensen, Scott Haman and Brent Folmer. Credit: Jay Johnson

Group picture of the science technicians, NICL and SCO. Back row (L to R): Joe Souney, John Mischler, (Jay Johnson sneaking into the picture), and Dave Ferris. Middle row (L to R): Zach Smith, Brian Bencivengo, Gabrielle Dreyfus, Anais Orsi, Trevor Popp, Rebecca Anderson, Ursula Rick and Geoff Hargreaves. Front row (L to R): Sylvia Englund and Inger Seierstad. Credit: Brian Bencivengo

Geoff Hargreaves with an air force pallet full of ice cores ready for retrograde to McMurdo Station. Credit: Brian Bencivengo

Geoff Hargreaves and Brian Bencivengo with the blue "elevator" used to move ice cores in and out of the underground core storage trench. Credit: Brian Bencivengo

Trevor Popp inside the underground core storage trench. Credit: Brian Bencivengo

Sylvia Englund with a rolling rack of empty ice core trays that were brought up from the underground core storage trench. Credit: Brian Bencivengo

Geoff Hargreaves (left) and Inger Seierstad (right) moving ice cores into the underground core storage trench. Credit: Brian Bencivengo

Geoff Hargreaves and Brian Bencivengo inside the core processing arch. Credit: Brian Bencivengo

Geoff Hargreaves inside the core processing arch. The blue gantry crane is used to move the ice cores in and out of the underground core storage trench. One of the two hatches to access the core storage trench is below Geoff's feet. Credit: Brian Bencivengo

The drill head of the DISC Drill with a core inside the drill barrel. The rotating drill head contains four razor sharp cutters that shave out an annulus of ice, which the drill then slides down into. As the drill slides down into the annulus it slides over the core, which is 122 mm (4.8 inches) in diameter and 2.7 meters long. When a cable pulls up the drill, four cams grab the core and break it free. After the drill is pulled back to the surface it is lowered from a vertical to horizontal orientation so that the ice core can be removed from the drill barrel. Credit: Jay Johnson

Trevor Popp, Geoff Hargreaves, Brian Bencivengo and Joe Souney wait to board an LC-130 to depart WAIS Divide for the season. Credit: Brian Bencivengo

A Twin Otter (at left) and LC-130 (at right) at WAIS Divide, Antarctica. The berm of snow in front of the LC-130 houses the fuel bladder for refueling the aircraft. Credit: Brian Bencivengo

The DISC Drill with a freshly-drilled ice core inside. Credit: Kendrick Taylor

The DISC Drill with a freshly-drilled ice core inside. Credit: Kendrick Taylor

Aerial view of the wintered-over cargo line at WAIS Divide at the beginning of the 2007-2008 field season. Credit: RPSC

An LC-130 sits at WAIS Divide as it is refueled. The fuel bladder for refueling is on the right. Credit: RPSC

View of the arch from the core processing side. Credit: Jay Johnson

View of the arch from the drilling side. Credit: Jay Johnson

View of the heavily-drifted side entrance to the arch. Credit: Jay Johnson

Lowering the DISC Drill's winch drum into place inside the arch. Credit: Jay Johnson

Pushing the DISC Drill's winch drum with the Caterpillar 953. Credit: Jay Johnson

Pushing the DISC Drill's winch drum with the Caterpillar 953. Credit: Jay Johnson

Placing the DISC Drill's level wind inside the arch. Credit: Jay Johnson

Pushing the DISC Drill's level wind with the Caterpillar 953. Credit: Jay Johnson

Assembling the DISC Drill's tower. Credit: Jay Johnson

Moving the DISC Drill's tower base into place. Credit: Jay Johnson

Brian Bencivengo (foreground) and Geoff Hargreaves (background) inside the underground core storage trench. Credit: Brian Bencivengo

Drilling the 130-meter-long WDC06B ice core. The arch facility is the silver building to the right of the drill tower. WAIS Divide camp is to the left of the drill tower. The ice cores were measured and logged within the yellow tent. Photo Credit: Joseph Souney

Drilling the 130-meter-long WDC06B ice core. The arch facility is the silver building to the left of the drill tower. WAIS Divide camp is to the right of the drill tower. The ice cores were measured and logged within the yellow tent. Photo Credit: Joseph Souney

Beth Bergeron removes the inner barrel from the outer barrel of the 4-Inch drill while Michael Jayred operates the drill. Photo Credit: Joseph Souney

The inner core barrel of the 4-Inch drill (left) and a 1-meter-long section of the WDC06B ice core (right). The control box, winch, and tower of the 4-Inch Drill are in the background. Photo Credit: Joseph Souney

View of the inner core barrel and drill head of the 4-Inch Drill. Photo Credit: Steven Profaizer/NSF

Michael Jayred pushes an ice core out of the 4-Inch Drill's inner core barrel while Beth Bergeron steadies the core barrel and Joe Souney steadies the core receiving tray. Photo Credit: Steven Profaizer/NSF

Beth Bergeron sharpening the cutters on the 4-Inch Drill. Photo Credit: Joseph Souney

Michael Jayred (right) and Beth Bergeron (left) back at camp. The white boxes on the left contain the ice cores that are ready for shipment back to the USA. Photo Credit: Joseph Souney

Joe Souney bags an ice core from the WDC06B borehole for its trip back to the United States. Photo Credit: Steven Profaizer

View inside the drilling arch with the 4-Inch Drill set-up to begin drilling the WDC06A pilot hole. Photo Credit: Joseph Souney

Drillers Michael Jayred and Beth Bergeron prepare to start drilling the first core from the WDC06A borehole. Photo Credit: Joseph Souney

The arch facility at WAIS Divide. The tall arch (foreground) will house the Deep Ice Sheet Coring (DISC) Drill whereas the small arch (background) will house all of the core handling equipment. Photo Credit: Joseph Souney

The first 1-meter-long section of the WDC06A ice core. Photo Credit: Joseph Souney

Arch carpenter crew group picture. Photo Credit: Jay Johnson.

Scientist Ben Smith lowers a video camera into a borehole to study the spatial variability in firn properties. Photo Credit: Steven Profaizer.

Jessica Drees and Ben Smith drill a borehole near the WAIS Divide field camp to study the spatial variability in firn properties. Photo Credit: Steven Profaizer.

A Scott Tent sits at 'Tent City', the collection of tents where people sleep at WAIS Divide field camp. Photo Credit: Steven Profaizer.

An American flag flies above the galley tent and a sign welcomes visitors to the WAIS Divide field camp. Photo Credit: Steven Profaizer.

Casing the WDC06A borehole. Photo Credit: Jay Johnson.

Birds-eye view of the WAIS Divide camp as viewed during the Basler put-in flight. Photo Credit: National Science Foundation

Heavy drifting from the previous winter at WAIS Divide field camp. Photo Credit: National Science Foundation

View of the camp showing the Basler (DC-3 turboprop) that was used for the put-in flight. Photo Credit: National Science Foundation

Digging out the WAIS Divide field camp. Photo Credit: National Science Foundation

The arch facility at WAIS Divide at the beginning of the 2006-2007 field season. The arch wintered well. The end walls took one full day to access via shovels. The outside wall (the one away from the camp) was drifted in heavily. There was also a trailing drift downwind from the arch that is long (~150+ yards) and tall. Photo Credit: National Science Foundation

Kendrick Taylor cutting snow blocks in a snowpit at WAIS Divide. Photo: Mark Twickler

The completed backlit snowpit. Bright sections on right are 50cm intervals. The snowpit is at the exact location where the deep ice core will be drilled. The snowpit was sampled for chemistry, isotopes, density, and stratigraphy to 3 meters. Photo: Kendrick Taylor

Beth Bergeron and Lou Albershardt drilling with the 4" drill next to the arch facility. Photo: Mark Dreier

Murat Aydin and Todd Sowers logging firn density and packaging the ice for its return trip to the U.S. Photo: Mark Dreier

Firn camp on a breezy day at WAIS Divide. Photo: Mark Dreier

Starting the 300 meter core using the four inch diameter drill. This core will be used to study gases in firn air and shallow ice at WAIS Divide. The yellow tent is the ice core processing tent. Photo: Mark Dreier

Setting up the 4-Inch Drill next to the arch facility to drill a 300-meter-long core for investigation of gases in firn air and shallow ice at WAIS Divide. Photo: Mark Dreier

Toasting to a successful firn ice drilling field campaign. From left to right: Lou Albershardt (ICDS), Mark Battle (Bowdoin), Mark Dreier (U. Colorado), Julie Palais (NSF), Todd Sowers (PennState), Jay Kyne (ICDS), Mike Waskiewicz (ICDS), Terry Gacke (ICDS), Beth Bergeron (ICDS), Murat Aydin (U. California). Photo: Mark Dreier

Arch construction team after hanging the last arch section. Photo: Dave Zastrow

Arch facility that will house the drill. The arches will serve as a large winter storage shed for this coming winter season. A 12-person crew, led by Billy Texter, erected the arches. Photo: Douglas Drmolka

Kenichi Matsuoka's dual-frequency radar system on a 16-foot-long Komotek sled. Photo: Kenichi Matsuoka

The new skiway groomer and Tucker Sno-cat at the WAIS Divide camp. Camp staff reports the Tucker and groomer are working very well. Photo: Mark Twickler

Marshalling in a LC-130 to WAIS Divide Camp. Photo: Robert Zimmerman

WAIS Divide Camp. Photo: Dave Zastrow

WAIS Divide Camp as of December 21, 2005. The yellow tents are called Rac-Tents. Photo: Dave Zastrow

View of WAIS Divide Camp. Camp population at this point in time is 50+. There has often been 3 to 4 LC-130 flights (carrying construction materials, camp equipment, etc) per day arriving to camp from McMurdo Station. Photo: Dave Zastrow

WAIS Divide 2005-2006 camp staff. Photo: Dave Zastrow

Assembling the Catepillar 953 at WAIS Divide Camp. Photo: Dave Zastrow

Digging the Tucker Sno-Cat out after a 2-day "mild" storm at WAIS Divide. Photo: Dave Zastrow

View of WAIS Divide camp when Kendrick Taylor and Mark Twickler arrived on November 20, 2005. A six person team set up the camp and established the runway to allow the LC-130s to start landing. Photo: Mark Twickler

Twin Otter crew refueling at Byrd. Currently Byrd is unoccupied but a buried fuel bladder is accessed by the Twin Otter crew for refueling during the flight from McMurdo Station to WAIS Divide. Photo: Mark Twickler

Some of the numerous drill shelter arch sections on pallets ready for transport to WAIS Divide Camp. Note Mount Erubus in the background. Photo: Mark Twickler

Participants from the 2013 WAIS Divide science meeting held on September 24-25 at the Scripps Seaside Forum, in La Jolla, CA. Photo Credit: Kendrick Taylor

Participants from the 2009 WAIS Divide science meeting held on October 1-2 at the Scripps Seaside Forum, in La Jolla, CA. Photo Credit: Sylvain Masclin

A National Ice Core Laboratory staff member measures a section of ice core from the WAIS Divide project during the 2011 core processing line. The ice will be shipped to labs across the country for analysis. Photo Credit: Peter Rejcek/National Science Foundation

Logan Mitchell, from Oregon State University, saws a section of an ice core destined for gas measurements. The WAIS Divide researchers are particularly interested in measuring past concentrations of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere. Photo Credit: Peter Rejcek/National Science Foundation

Each silver tube on these shelves contains a 1-meter-long section of an ice core. The white boxes contain new ice cores drilled from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide ice core site. Photo Credit: Peter Rejcek/National Science Foundation

USGS scientist Joan Fitzpatrick looks at a thin section of ice core, analyzing the pattern of individual ice crystals. Photo Credit: Peter Rejcek/National Science Foundation

Boxes containing frozen ice cores from the WAIS Divide ice core field site sit inside the National Ice Core Laboratory (NICL) main archive freezer, which is held at a temperature of -36 degrees Celcius. Photo Credit: Peter Rejcek/National Science Foundation

A National Ice Core Laboratory (NICL) staff member holds a 1-meter-long section of the WAIS Divide ice core. All 3,405 meters of the WAIS Divide ice core are in 1-meter-long sections and are stored in NICL's main archive freezer, which is held at a temperature of -36 degrees Celcius. Photo Credit: Peter Rejcek/National Science Foundation

A refrigerator mechanic attends to the refrigeration unit on one of the 40-foot freezer shipping containers used to transport ice cores from Antarctica to the National Ice Core Laboratory in Lakewood, CO. Photo Credit: Peter Rejcek/National Science Foundation

Each silver tube on these shelves contains a 1-meter-long section of the WAIS Divide ice core. This repository is at the National Ice Core Laboratory (NICL) in Lakewood, Colorado. The NICL freezer is kept at -36 degrees C to preserve the integrity of the ice. To learn more about NICL visit the NICL website. Photo Credit: Peter Rejcek/National Science Foundation

Group photo from the 2011 core processing line at the National Ice Core Laboratory. Photo Credit: Peter Rejcek/National Science Foundation

Science technician Tommy Cox measures a section of the WAIS Divide ice core as it begins its journey down the 2010 core processing line at the National Ice Core Lab near Denver, CO. The technicians will cut the ice so it can be sent to labs around the country for analysis. Photo Credit: Peter Rejcek/National Science Foundation

Group photo from the 2010 core processing line at the National Ice Core Laboratory. Photo Credit: Geoff Hargreaves/NICL

Group photo from the 2007 core processing line at the National Ice Core Laboratory. Photo Credit: Eric Cravens/NICL