Spring 2016

On April 10, 1978 Betty Adrian began her USGS career. She was hired as a geologic field assistant to assist in the collection of samples that would help determine the mineral resource potential for metallic minerals in the Wallace 1° x 2° quadrangle, Montana and Idaho.

When one is already in possession of the world's oldest chunk of ice, perhaps it's only natural to want to go older. John Higgins, a Princeton University assistant professor of geosciences, led a team of researchers who reported in 2015 the recovery of a 1-million-year-old ice core from the remote Allan Hills of Antarctica, the oldest ice ever recorded by scientists.

As the winch extracted a two-meter-long cylinder of ancient ice in late December, Murat Aydin looked on. "If we can keep this pace up we should be able to hit 1,600 meters," he said. "This is going to be the deepest ice core drilled at the South Pole by quite a margin."

The goal of housing Canada's ice core collection at the University of Alberta and turning it into an accessible scientific resource is a big step closer to reality, thanks to a $2.3-million grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation

Ice cores provide unique quantitative knowledge about past climate change, and have become one of the most persuasive symbols of the importance of polar science. 24 nations have active ice core programmes, and are represented in International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS).

Ice Core Young Scientists (ICYS) held a highly successful one-day workshop for early career researchers on 6 March 2016. The workshop was held in conjunction with the International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS) 2016 second open science conference in Hobart, Australia.