It has been about two months since I attended our orientation/training in Alaska. During that time, I have been slowly preparing for my trip to the Arctic. I have been gathering items that I will need for the trip (see photo below). I also had to complete a physical qualification process due to the remote nature of where I will be going. That is all done now and I am getting ready to go!
Some of the items that I have collected for the trip.
Purpose of the Expedition
As I have been talking about the expedition to more people, the main question I get is "What is the team doing?" You can read more about it on the main expedition page. But, I wanted to give a basic overview of the purpose in this journal.
Our team leader is Dr. Ian Baker who is a materials engineering professor at Dartmouth University. The second member is Eric Wagner, a PhD student at Dartmouth University. During the expedition, I will post journals to help you get to know these two researchers.
In early June (the dates are not yet finalized), we will fly to Greenland from New York on a cargo plane. We will eventually make our way to Summit Station. This is an NSF funded research facility that is located on top of the ice sheet in Greenland.
Ice core sample (Photo by Gerty Ward (PolarTREC 2008), Courtesy of ARCUS).
At Summit Station, we will be working with a professional ice core driller to collect core samples from as deep as 80 meters, or a little over 250 feet, down in the ice sheet. In the picture above, you can see an example of a small ice core sample from a previous expedition to the Arctic. Our team will be studying the ice core samples on site in Greenland. We will also be transporting a number of these samples back to Dartmouth University.
Once back at Dartmouth, we will be looking at the structure of the ice using advanced techniques. The intent is to see how the structure of the ice has been and continues to be affected by temperature changes and the weight of the ice. Deep ice core samples are very useful for researchers because they contain trapped air. This air was trapped many years ago, allowing researchers to test the composition of the atmosphere in the past.
Understanding how the structure of the ice has changed will help researchers better conduct this type of research. It will also provide important data for understanding how ice flows. This is extremely important given the melting of the ice sheet that has been taking place in Greenland.
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