I would be remiss if I didn’t talk a bit about Spice Core – an experiment that runs in the Summer, and made my first Antarctic Summer very exciting. Spice Core uses a hole in the ice that is approximately a mile deep. Ice that deep can flow a bit like water (similar to how the holes for IceCube work) and so it has to be filled with a fluid to keep it open. That fluid is an anti-freeze solution. Then, at the top, it has a tube letting people put so called “loggers” down to measure the properties of the ice.

In order to safely lower something that far in to the ice, we need to use a winch. The Winch must have a large amount of strength because it has to not only hold the logger, but also the length of the cable, which can weigh a lot at gull extension. The winch winds and unwinds very slowly – it is a delicate operation that needs to be done carefully. Occasionally, it will stop to allow the logger to collect data – the logger has a data connection along the cable as well.

The loggers can measure things like ice transmission and response to light. This information is then very important for calibrating IceCube proper. It is also a unique place to get up close and personal to very old ice under a lot of pressure.

The hole is quite far away from both the station and the ICL – it is approximately 1.5mi from the station door and in not drilled in the active area of IceCube. While it is possible to walk there, most people use snowmobiles, which can run in the Summer when it’s warm enough. To stay warm while you’re there, you can go in to the “Crystal Palace”, which is the greenhouse looking structure in the middle of the picture above. Since it takes so long to get there and it takes so long to raise and lower the loggers, it is good to have a place where you can take off your gloves and eat, etc.

Due to logistical holdups (even pre-COVID), the working season was shortened for the Spice Core crew, but they made a heroic effort and were able to complete their data taking run by working round the clock.

At the end of the summer, however, everything gets packed up (and the winch is shipped to somewhere else it can be useful). We say goodbye and don’t even get to use the snowmobiles anymore. The only thing left ends up being the tube sticking out of the snow. The snow effectively raises by ~1ft/yr, so it needs to be quite high to remain accessible. You can still see it if you walk out there (well, until the sun goes down – I would not recommend going that far in ungroomed snow in the dark).