100 meters of Ice Core

On June 8th we finished drilling the ice core. We went 100 meters deep. Eric arrived on the 7th. He drilled the last core to the song “The final countdown” which Meredith and Justin had chosen. It was an easy and jubilant day in the morning at the drill site.


That afternoon Justin and I were tasked with unburying the ice core boxes and stacking them on a pallet to load on the C-130. This was a tough job. When the Ice Core boxes were brought back at the end of each day we shoveled a pile of snow on them. This creates an instant freezer. We brought back four boxes each day for three days, so we had three piles of snow. First Justin and I went to the task of digging out the boxes. This was hard work. Once the boxes were unburied we had to move them about 15 to 20 meters. Not very far but each box weighs over a hundred pounds. This is very hard work at 3000 meters. For the first pile, we completely unburied the boxes and then moved them. On the second pile, Justin turned our task into a Worlds Strongest Man competition. After I would unbury the top of the box Justin would grunt and pull the box out of the snow. I think they should add the sport of ice core box pulling to the competition you see on ESPN where men pull brick with there teeth.

Justin was very enthusiastic about this job. At one point I took a break and collapsed into the pile of snow we were digging out. I rested for a few minutes until Justin started digging out my snow seat. This made me get back up and start digging.

Once the boxes were out of the snow, they were stacked on a pallet. Eight boxes could fit across the bottom of the pallet. Herc pallet, however, can be stacked 96 inches high. So we put on the first eight and then started a second row. This was fine until we got to the third row which was at my eye level. Good thing Justin was tall. The fourth row was pretty funny. I would just support the weight of the box while Justin put it on top. We put the boxes with cores closest to the surface of the ice sheet on top. These cores were less dense and lighter. As you get deeper in the ice sheet the cores become denser and the boxes are about 20 pounds heavier.

At the end of the day, Kathy and Kim came out and showed us how to put cargo nets over the pallet. The pallet was then buried again, this time with the cat, to wait for its final trip back to UW in July. The ice cores will be shipped back on a “cold deck” flight meaning that the Herc’s cargo area will have no heat for the ice cores or the passengers. Then the boxes are loaded on freezer truck and driven to UW.