Ice core aquisition and analysis

State-of-the-art capability

BAS provides the UK’s only capability to recover and analyse ice cores (up to 1000 m). We provide ice core drills for deployment by research teams around the world, and operate state-of-the-art laboratories in Cambridge to provide a wide range of climatologically and environmentally-relevant chemical, gas and stable isotope analyses.

Expertise

Ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland are drilled, processed and analysed by BAS scientists and engineers. Laboratory facilities in Cambridge allow the analysis and interpretation of ice cores dating from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of years old. The current facilities allow ice to be stored, processed and analysed, using a number of analytical chemistry techniques (e.g. ICP-mass spectrometry and Fast-ion chromatography) to provide information from the past to help to predict the future.

Ice Chemistry Laboratories

The ability to process cores and distribute carefully-handled samples to other specialist collaborators
Analysis of both liquid and gas phase multi-proxy elements of the ice core
The production of detailed records of climate change in the Antarctic Peninsula region over the last 2000 years
The interpretation of ice core records including climate and atmospheric modelling studies, aimed both at improving ice core proxies, and understanding the couplings and interactions between different parts of the earth-system.