31 October 2009 Let the Sampling Begin

We tunneled nine meters into the glacier and then made a four by three meter room at the end of the tunnel and now we are ready to start sampling. Initially we thought that we would have to tunnel downwards at the end of tunnel to reach a sediment layer about a half meter under the tunnel, but we got lucky and found a sediment layer at the end of our tunnel. It is a perfect sediment layer because it is stratified and alternates between clean and dirty ice. This will work really well for both the microbiology and gas experiments. Even better is that it is a lot easier to take samples from a wall in front of you than cutting and digging samples out of a hole. We hope to take samples for about the next week or so and even start sending some samples back to McMurdo to be analyzed in a couple of days.

To sample the ice we cut specific sized blocks of ice out of the sediment layer, label them, and then package them up. It may sound easy, but it needs to be very precise. We have to be careful to cut the correct sized blocks and not break them when removing them from the wall. We also have to make sure that all the blocks are correctly labeled and their position is recorded in a lab notebook. We wouldn't want to mess up someone's research because of a small error.