Lonnie Thompson’s
Ice Core Expeditions

Searching for Clues to the Past in Ice Cores
with Lonnie and Ellen Mosley Thompson
and their team

Teaching Tip: Check out Rita Chang’s article in the Flotsam and Jetsam Journal, Fall, 2006 on how to use explorations of ice in the classroom (including how to create ice cores with students). Use these photos to give students an idea of what’s involved in obtaining these incredible (and disappearing) records of Earth’s past and to turn them on to Glaciology and Paleoclimatology as fascinating career choices.

Field photos shared with Classroom Encounters courtesy of Lonnie and Ellen Mosley-Thompson. Many, many thanks to them for sharing these inspiring and amazing photos with teachers, educators, and students.

Please find out more about their legendary field work on glaciers and using “fossil ice” to uncover Earth’s past climate by visiting The Byrd Center for Polar Research at Ohio State University: http://www-bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/

Also http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/slides/slideset/index20.htm

Members of Lonnie Thompson’s field team working to extract a freshly drilled piece of ice core from the drill barrel on Coropuna ice cap, Peru. People shown are David Umann, Mary Davis, Vladimir Mikhalenko, and Patrick Ginot.

 

Lonnie Thompson examining an ice core.

 

Ellen Mosley-Thompson processing ice cores in a trench excavated below the snow surface at Siple Station in Antarctica where she and her team drilled a 303-meter long ice core.

 

Ellen Mosley-Thompson processing ice core on the back of a Nansen Sled at South Pole Station, Antarctica during a traverse to collect 20 meter cores.

 

The drill team collecting icecores at South Pole Station, Antarctica.

 

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“This one shows the margin of the Quelccaya Ice Cap in southern Peru in 1977...

 

"...This one shows the Quelccaya margin in 2002 taken from the same location as the photo taken in 1977. This demonstrates the remarkable retreat of the margin of the Quelccaya ice cap.”
Ellen Mosley-Thompson

 

High on the slopes of Huascaran

 

The first ones to use solar powered ice core drilling equipment….
Quelccaya Base Camp, Peru (elevation: 18,000 feet or 5600meters)

 

Dunde Base Camp

 

Ice Core Drill

 

Lonnie and Mary David, Kilimanjaro

Click here to read a
CNN article on Lonnie Thompson