Image

Frozen Evidence

July 27, 2008

WHOI geologist Adam Soule holds a chunk of icy sediment plucked from the soils of Antarctica in December 2007. When Soule and colleagues dug a pit into the earth around Mount Morning, they found layers, or horizons. First there’s the light gray, powdery layer—about 6 inches of dry sand. The dark brown layer beneath is frozen sand mixed with volcanic rocks up to about the size of a football. Below that, in the bottom right, is the upper section of the ice layer. Soule holds a chunk taken from the sudden transition between frozen sand and hard white ice. Soule and colleagues gathered several samples for further lab analysis in Woods Hole.
(Photo by Chris Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)