Management of the EPICA-DC ice core stored at Concordia

The EPICA ice core, drilled at Dome C is 3260 m long and allows to record climatic changes over the last 800,000 years. It is therefore a particularly valuable archive. A quarter of the ice core (over the entire length) has been kept in an ice cave dug into the snow, where the average annual temperature is -55°C. The reason for this on-site storage is indeed to keep the ice at very low temperatures as required by certain measures. The rest of the ice core was either distributed to EPICA’s various partners or kept in cold rooms at -25°C, near Grenoble. The objective of this project concerns the management of the archive remaining in Concordia. The tasks are:
– Respond to sampling requests from various national or international groups (once endorsed by EPICA’s Steering Committee);
– Finish the repacking of the bags (if it is not finished in 2017-2018);
– Prepare the specifications for the future EPICA cave, taking into account the interactions with the “ice memory” storage project.

This project is thus a service to the ice core community more than a scientific proposal by itself.