COLDEX REU 2024 Recap: Hands-On with Ice Cores
This past summer, National Science Foundation COLDEX welcomed 12 undergraduate students from 11 institutions around the country as part of the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU), a program that pairs undergraduate students with NSF-funded researchers every summer. While many students worked with scientists either in labs or remotely, three undergraduate students were invited to the U.S. National Science Foundation Ice Core Facility (ICF) in Lakewood, Colorado, to learn more about ice cores and contribute to the core processing line (CPL) that frequently takes place at the ICF. For COLDEX, the CPL is one of the most important parts of the process of handling an ice core: it’s when researchers from across the country carefully study and cut ice cores collected in the field to take back to their labs for further analysis.
COLDEX scientist Julia Marks-Peterson holding an ice core in its storage tube before sawing it into smaller pieces for geochemical analysis. Photo by Jayme Collins, Blue Lab Media.
For many REU participants and early career researchers, the opportunity to spend time at the ICF is their first ever encounter with samples from Antarctica and is a chance for them to have hands-on time with polar ice. And while many of this year’s COLDEX-related participants were undergraduate students, others were seasoned ICF visitors, such as Julia Marks-Peterson, PhD candidate at Oregon State University. “Part of my role was to be there to be knowledgeable about what the cores were that were coming in, and help with decision making,” says Julia, who has been to the ICF three times before and was part of the field team that collected some of the ice cores being processed this year. “We have two kinds of large categories of ice core cuts. We have one that is a continuous flow analysis cut, where we cut a stick the length of the whole core and then continuously melt it, which allows us to make continuous measurements from that core. And the other type is called discrete sampling. So instead of getting the entire length of the core, we're just choosing specific depths to cut and and do discrete type measurements off of it.”
“ In the CPL, there’s this feeling of a common effort.”
For Chinonso Obiefule, an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, being able to conduct live measurements at the CPL this year was an unexpected surprise. “When I applied for [the COLDEX REU], I mentioned that I really wanted to do some sort of lab work,” he says. He then worked with Liam Kirkpatrick, a PhD researcher at the University of Washington, who helped him secure a spot at the ICF for the summer. Instead of only doing coding work as he expected, Chinonso had the chance to assist with cutting ice cores and taking electrical conductivity measurements on them. For him, the experience was incredible. “I would just say that the week in Denver was honestly one of the best weeks of my life because it was just so great getting to know the researchers better and just hanging out with them. In the CPL, there's this feeling of a common effort. People are helping out with other projects that aren't even their own projects. That sense of community, of helping each other out, even if it doesn't really directly benefit you, but the team as a whole, that's the biggest thing I really liked about the CPL.”
UT Austin REU Chinonso Obiefule operating the Electrical Conductivity Measurement (ECM) Instrument. Photo by Liam Kirkpatrick.
These types of experiences are exactly what the REU program is for. For Liam Kirkpatrick, the experience of mentoring undergraduates reminded him of his own introduction to polar science. “I got into ice core science five years ago as an undergrad, and I had some really incredible mentors in my undergrad institution that helped me get started. Being able to get [undergrads] into the freezer, hands-on with the ice, you immediately start having questions. You notice weird things with the bubbles, you notice weird things with bits of rock and grain embedded in the cores and so I think that's a really important step [in their education].”
Whether scientists are measuring variations in electrical conductivity of the ice, constraining layer geometries and layer compositions from Allan Hills ice, or analyzing gas pockets in cores, time at the ICF is critical for advancing NSF COLDEX’s goal of studying the oldest ice on Earth. Beyond the critical role of advancing science, however, time at the ICF is critical for engaging the next generation of polar scientists too. Megan Erskine, from Front Range Community College in Fort Collins, Colorado, reflected: “The biggest takeaway for me is honestly the ice core community. It's such a niche field of science, but it's such an accepting and passionate field—everyone in ice core science is so passionate to tell you about what they're doing and I think that makes it so much more inclusive because no one is holding their research from you. They are more than excited to tell you ‘this is why we're studying this’ and ‘this is how we're studying it.’ And so I think that was a big takeaway for me was that I was seen as an equal in that environment, and I love that.”
COLDEX 2024 CPL group photo. Image by Jayme Collins, Blue Lab Media.
If you are an undergraduate student interested in learning more about the COLDEX REU program, applications for Summer 2025 open on December 1, 2024. For more information, visit https://coldex.org/reu
