The National Science Foundation Ice Core Facility (NSF-ICF), known as the National Ice Core Laboratory (NICL) before 2018, is the primary repository for

ice core An ice core is a core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet or a high mountain glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier ...

s collected by the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The facility is located at the Denver Federal Center in

Lakewood, Colorado Lakewood is the List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality that is the List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous municipality in Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 15 ...

, and is managed by the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on Mar ...

(USGS). Funding for the facility comes from the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

Office of Polar Programs, while scientific research is managed by the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire, United States. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant coll ...

. NSF-ICF currently houses ~22,000 m of ice cores collected from

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

and

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

, including the GISP2, Siple Dome, and portions of the

Vostok Vostok () refers to east in Russian but may also refer to: Spaceflight * Vostok programme, Soviet human spaceflight project * Vostok (spacecraft), a type of spacecraft built by the Soviet Union * Vostok (rocket family), family of rockets derived ...

cores. It is the lead facility for management of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide ice core. In addition to providing a large storage facility, maintained at -35 ° C, NSF-ICF also has one of the largest sub-zero research and sample preparation spaces in the world. NSF-ICF is responsible for distributing samples of ice cores in their collection to researchers around the world, following approved research proposals. In addition to the primary archive freezer, NSF-ICF has a nonsterile exam room, as well as a FED-STD-209E class-100

HEPA HEPA (, high efficiency particulate air) filter, also known as a high efficiency particulate arresting filter, is an efficiency standard of air filters. Filters meeting the HEPA standard must satisfy certain levels of efficiency. Common standa ...

-filtered, cold

cleanroom A cleanroom or clean room is an engineered space that maintains a very low concentration of airborne particulates. It is well-isolated, well-controlled from contamination, and actively cleansed. Such rooms are commonly needed for scientifi ...

held at -24 °C that scientists use when examining ice cores. Scientists generally use the exam rooms to cut samples from the ice cores, and then ship the samples back to their home institution for analysis. Very little analysis of the ice cores occurs at NSF-ICF itself. In addition to research activities, NSF-ICF also participates in public outreach and gives ~100 tours per year.

References

External links

Ice Core Laboratory homepage
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See also

References

External links