WAIS Divide
The International Glaciological Society (IGS) has awarded the Society's Richardson Medal to Dr. Julie Palais, a long standing member of the IGS.
By Joe McConnell, Roger Kreidberg, and Justin Broglio, Desert Research Institute
New findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) by Desert Research Institute (DRI) Professor Joseph R. McConnell, Ph.D., and colleagues document a 192-year series of volcanic eruptions in Antarctica that coincided with accelerated deglaciation about 17,700 years ago.
NSF Press Release 15-048
Analysis indicates that northern temperature changes led corresponding southern patterns by 200 years.
By Bess Koffman, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Bess Koffman enjoys getting dusty in the name of science. Currently a postdoctoral scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Koffman recently returned from New Zealand's South Island.
By Peter Rejcek, Antarctic Sun Editor
Courtesy: The Antarctic Sun, U.S. Antarctic Program
Mick Sternberg had literally made the same measurement a thousand times before. But this meter-long ice core was perhaps just a little more special.
By Joe Souney, Ice Drilling Program Office
Replicate coring is the act of deviating out of an existing borehole to collect additional ice samples from depth intervals of particular interest.
By Joe Souney, WAIS Divide Ice Core Project SCO
After a ~16-day weather delay, RPSC opened WAIS Divide via a Basler on November 8 with a seven person put-in team
By Peter Rejcek, Antarctic Sun Editor
Courtesy: The Antarctic Sun, U.S. Antarctic Program
It's midsummer in Denver, and the city has been baking under a heat wave for a couple of months. But in one small corner of the sprawling Denver Federal Center campus in the nearby suburb of Lakewood, about a dozen people are bundled up in thickly insulated Carhartt jumpsuits, wool caps, scarves and gloves.
The 2010 core processing line (CPL) was extremely successful. It was the most complex cut plan and the most ice (~1,365 meters) that the U.S. ice core community has ever pushed through a CPL in a summer.
By WAIS Divide Science Coordination Office
Core recovery for the 2009/2010 drilling season ended as scheduled on January 25 at a bottom depth of 2560 meters. A total of 1049 meters of ice were drilled and the season's core quality was excellent.
By Rob Bauer, Antarctic Glaciological Data Center
The Antarctic Glaciological Data Center (AGDC) at the National Snow and Ice Data Center is pleased to announce the release of a new data set, WAIS Divide Ice Core Images, Antarctica.
By WAIS Divide Science Coordination Office (SCO)
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide camp opened for the 2009/10 season on Nov-2 (local time). After a 5.5-hour direct flight from McMurdo Station via Basler aircraft, the camp put-in team, led by camp manager Theresa "T" Tran, arrived to WAIS Divide after 10 days of weather delays.
By Anais Orsi, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
When people ask me "How was Antarctica?", I inevitably respond, "It was white!" WAIS Divide resembles most deep ice coring field camps: the white ice sheet extends to the horizon like a frozen sea.
By WAIS Divide Science Coordination Office
Despite a two-week delay due to budget cuts and heavy equipment problems at camp, the second field season of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide Ice Core Project was extremely successful.
By Joseph Souney, Operations Manager, WAIS Divide Science Coordination Office
The third season for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide Ice Core Project ended on 05 February 2008. The inaugural season of deep drilling with the Deep Ice Sheet Coring (DISC) Drill went very well and core quality was excellent.
By Ben Smith, University of Washington
In late 2006, a team from the University of Washington visited the WAIS Divide field camp in West Antarctica to investigate the distribution of annual-scale layers upstream of the WAIS Divide ice coring site. This upstream area is of considerable importance for the WAIS Divide ice core because this is where all of the ice found in the ice core originally fell as snow.
By Joe Souney, Operations Manager, WAIS Divide Science Coordination Office (SCO)
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide Ice Core project is progressing very well. In June we processed the top 110 meters of the main ice core drilled during the 2006/2007 field season at the National Ice Core Laboratory (NICL) in Denver, CO.
By Joe Souney, Operations Manager, WAIS Divide Science Coordination Office (SCO)
WAIS Divide is a United States deep ice core project in West Antarctica funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The purpose of the project is to collect a 3,400 meter deep ice core from the flow divide (similar to a watershed divide) in central West Antarctica in order to develop records for the last 100,000 years of: global climate, the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), and biological activity.