James Smith

@shelfyice.bsky.social

Marine geologist/glacial sedimentologist at the British Antarctic Survey interested in ice shelf/sheet history. Views my own

We’ve wrapped up drilling at Crary Ice Rise with 228m of sediment core. This is an unprecedented record of the history of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet stretching back millions of years. Initial observations indicate the core includes periods of environmental change during past times of warming.

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We have successfully drilled 200 metres of sediment core from beneath the ice sheet at Crary Ice Rise! The pipe is still spinning - with a bit of time up our sleeve, we’re not stopping drilling yet, as we continue to drill back through the geological archive hidden beneath the ice. 📷 Ana Tovey

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We’ve got our eyes on the prize 24/7, through blowing snow, lashing winds and sunshine. With more than 100 metres of sediment core retrieved, we’re more than halfway towards our target of 200 metres. Co-Chief Huw Horgan shares this expedition update from our deep-field camp at Crary Ice Rise.

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Important paper in Nature today about collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. There is a positive isotope anomaly at Skytrain Ice Rise during the last interglacial, consistent with what we found in our high-resolution water-isotope simulations when WAIS collapses. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Ronne Ice Shelf survived the last interglacial - Nature

Sea salt data from an ice core record show that Antarctica’s Ronne Ice Shelf survived the last interglacial, the last period of enhanced and sustained global warmth about 125,000 years ago.

nature.com

Hello from the Brunt Ice Shelf! ⚡🧪 The RIFT-TIP team are using ice cores and seismology to model how huge fractures travel across ice shelves. With just a few weeks left, they've been putting in a real shift: 🧊 4 ice cores drilled 🔍 60km of radar transects taken ⚡ 64 surface seismometers set up

Four people in bright down jackets pose together on a bright, empty ice shelf. They are holding a long ice core cylinder, which is taller than all of them. Photo: Emma Pearce