May 18 am, 2000

Core Processing


Eric Williams, biology major at Colgate (at left) and MarikaGeertz , geology major at Hamilton (far right), work with Dr. Stefanie Brachfeld from the University of Minnesota collecting sediment samples from a kasten core. By the time all the samples for various uses and archive slabs have been collected almost no sediment will remain in the core. The kasten corer collects a 5.5 inch square core up to almost 10 feet long. This particular core only penetrated the sea floor to a depth of just over 2 feet.

A quick update between core processing duties. Exciting developments are happening here in the Weddell Sea. Core sediments are different than what was anticipated, requiring a rethinking of what is happening under the ice at least in this area. I'll expand on this in a post later today when I'm off shift but basically we are finding in the sediments evidence that a lot of biologic activity was occurring in the water column under the ice shelf. Previously it was thought that waters under these floating ice shelves had minimal biologic activity. Core processing will be the order of the day the "night shift".

Dave Tewksbury
tewksbda@nbp.polar.org

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