Setting up for microbiology and core curation

While our drillers are hard at work moving forward towards geological drilling, our newly arrived science team are working at lightning speed to get prepared for when we have our first core on deck.

They’ve dug out a pit for cold storage of microbiology samples. These need to be kept at around -20°C.

The warm science container has been transformed into a lab, ready to X-ray cores and take sediment samples for microbiological analysis.

The team were thrilled to find a note from last season left with the lab supplies wishing them well! 

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Deepest-ever rock core extracted from under Antarctic ice sheet

Deepest-ever rock core extracted from under Antarctic ice sheet

18 February 2026

Analyses will help to reveal how far the West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated in the past — and what it might do in the future.

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Scientists Drilled Into Antarctic Ice Until They Met Bedrock, Then Got A 228-Meter Sample Of Sediment

Scientists Drilled Into Antarctic Ice Until They Met Bedrock, Then Got A 228-Meter Sample Of Sediment

18 February 2026

Scientists have just got their hands on a 228-metre (748-foot) core sample from the muddy bedrock beneath West Antarctica’s chunky ice sheets. Inside the record-breaking sample, they discovered fossils of marine organisms that date from a time when this area was an open, ice-free ocean.

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