WAIS DIVIDE, ANTARCTICA-- Here is a short video that summarizes all of the steps in collecting an ice core using the Deep Ice Sheet Coring (DISC) drill... {Read More »}

WAIS DIVIDE, ANTARCTICA-- Our primary goal here at WAIS Divide is to drill and collect ice cores and get it shipped back to the United States. Rarely do we see anything other than clear ice with some scratches and cracks, but around 1600 m deep we retrieved a core with a visible dark band in it. We think that this layer is a tephra layer, or a volcanic ash deposit!... {Read More »}

WAIS DIVIDE, ANTARCTICA: Before we start drilling again this season, we are shipping out about 1,000 meters of ice that overwintered here are WAIS Divide... {Read More »}

WAIS DIVIDE, ANTARCTICA-- We finally arrived at WAIS Divide. Our flight departed as planned and now the crew is here learning the ropes and getting used to how to survive constantly cold temperatures... {Read More »}

BEACON VALLEY, ANTARCTICA-- The early morning started out with blustery winds and soon snow from the polar plateau started blowing in; it was by far the worst weather we have experienced during this field season... {Read More »}

BEACON VALLEY, ANTARCTICA-- On November 3rd the field team arrived into Beacon Valley where we will spend the next six weeks working, sleeping, and enjoying life in sub-zero (Celsius) temperatures... {Read More »}

Heidi Roop is part of a team more than 100 scientists collecting and analyzing a 2-mile-long (3.5-km-long) ice core from the West Antarctica Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide. The WAIS team estimates that this ice core will reveal climate changes that have happened as far back as 100,000 years, a time when woolly mammoths still walked the earth. {Read More »}

MCMURDO STATION, ANTARCTICA-- The primary science objective for our field team this season is to core buried glacier ice to depths of 40+ meters. The outstanding question is, how old is the ice?... {Read More »}

Scientists suspect that a buried alpine glacier in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica may be over 8 million years old. If true, it's the oldest ice yet discovered on our planet and may contain an archive of climate data stretching back to the time of the earliest hominids. {Read More »}

NEEM CAMP, GREENLAND-- The question that I probably get asked most often (besides “did you see any penguins?”) about my trips to the poles is what evidence I’ve seen for climate change... {Read More »}