A Sipre 3-inch core barrel was used. The cores were drilled by hand to avoid contamination by oil and gasoline. Both the ice core length and the ice thickness were recorded. There was often a discrepancy between these values due to gaps in the core or the inability to obtain a core sample from the bottom part of the ice floe.
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Vertical thin sections were made from the structure cores. These thin sections were photographed using transmitted natural light and through crossed-polaroids to analyze the crystallographic structure of the ice. The relative amounts of granular and columnar ice were determined. Averaging all cores together there was 66% granular ice and 34% columnar in 2001. In 2002, there was 78% granular and 22% columnar ice. The structural analysis of the thin sections was performed by A.J. Gow.
A key component of our program was ice properties studies. The goal was to describe the physical and morphological properties of the snow cover and the ice cover. This includes determining the distribution of snow depth, ice thickness, and flooded ice, as well as the salinity and crystallographic structure of the ice. There were three elements to this work: snow and ice surveys, ice cores, and snow pits.
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In 2001, over 120 ice cores, at more than 30 sites were taken for analysis. Typically four cores were taken at each site; one for temperature, salinity, and oxygen isotopes; one for structural analysis; and two for biology. In 2002, cores were taken at 21 sites and analyzed for temperature, salinity, oxygen isotopes, and structure.
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Related datasets:
\nice thickness, snow pits, sea ice, ice optics