Not subscribed?

Fabien Drewes hacks away at the ice to try to get down to the soil to take samples for nutrient measurements.

After hacking the ice away, the job isn’t over – there is still some distance to go before the ground the team wish to sample is revealed.

It’s not an easy job to core a hole through glacier ice. Prof Birgit Sattler cuts steps in the snow hole to make the entire process just a little easier.

This ice corer has a design very similar to a drill, it has a thread which runs around the outside of the hollow central tube which, when turned, draws the corer into the ground. The sample is forced into the central chamber so that once the ice corer is removed from the ground, the sample can be removed and stored.

Fabien and Prof Birgit Sattler empty out ice core samples into the sample bags. They are using latex gloves to make sure that the samples are not contaminated and to preserve the validity of the data.

Prof Birgit Sattler peers down the end of the corer to see if there are any hockey puck like ice core samples to package up.

Samples loaded into the box on the back of the skidoo. All are carefully labelled in sterile bags and sample tubes. This is to avoid any contamination and to ensure the science team can accurately state the nutrient and microbial quantities across the different sample sites.

The field research team is just packing up after a long day collecting samples. From left to right: Robert Leimser, Prof Birgit Sattler, Fabian Drewes, James Bradley and Klemens Weisleitner.

After a hard day in the field, the team packs the samples. It’s back to the British Antarctic Survey UK Arctic Research Station for processing.

Research teams use a variety of modes of transport up in Ny Alesund. There is a dog team up here, and some people ski with pulks (sleds) for their gear; but the simplest and easiest way to transport the gear and samples to and from the field site is the skidoo. We keep the speed nice and steady at 30 kph. With the snow melting, there could be rocks exposed and patches of ice that could flip the skidoo or send it into a spin, so there's a need to be careful.