Hard to jot that fact down, as your pen is frozen. The Ice Core laboratory is both an archive and a distribution center. The lab receives meter-long samples drilled out of distant icepacks, mostly in Greenland and Antarctica, and records their depths and places of origin. Then Cravens and his staff cut the cores into smaller sections and distribute them to researchers who examine the ice for clues on ancient climate. Cravens says he makes sure the ice is cut right and stored right.
Ice cores arrive by refrigerator truck from a California port, wrapped in insulated boxes.
Samples are then sent out to institutions all over the world. If you were to lay them end to end, the result would stretch 16 kilometers, Cravens says. To preserve their research value, ice cores must be kept under -15 celsius. Above that temperature, gases within the ice can migrate and distort the data scientists are after, Cravens says. The National Ice Core lab's freezer is insulated with a foot of polyurethane and cooled with a freon replacement air conditioner that uses three compressors.