Arctic ice island coring facility

A three-by-seven-km iceberg that calved from the Ward Hunt ice shelf on northern Ellesmere Island in 1982 and began moving west into the Arctic Ocean was used by the Canadian Department of Energy, Mines, and Resources as an opportunity to take sediment samples and piston cores from this area of the Arctic Ocean and other areas as dictated by the track of the ice island. A substantial sediment sampling system was developed, built, and installed on the island. It consists of a winch, gantry, and ice melting system capable of taking piston cores to a water depth of 4000 m. Sampling is carried out through a 1.5-m-diameter hole melted through ice 44-m thick by a 249-kW melting system. The evolution, logistics, and capabilities of the sampling system are described