IODP Sampling Party at MARUM

Nov 20, 2019

The researchers work in two shifts in order to successfully master the ambitious sampling plan. Photo: IODP/Marlo Garnsworthy

25,000 samples in about ten days - this is the ambitious plan for the 23 researchers at the so-called Sampling Party, which is currently taking place at the IODP Bremen Core Repository at MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences of the University of Bremen. The cores now being sampled are from Expedition 382 "Iceberg Alley and Subantarctic Ice and Ocean Dynamics" of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP).

Earlier this year expedition 382 – co-lead by Mike Weber (University of Bonn) and Maureen Raymo (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, USA) – recovered about 2.8 kilometers of core in the South Atlantic. On board the research drilling vessel JOIDES RESOLUTION, the cores were not sampled in detail – for the analyses in the science party members’ home labs -, this is happening now in Bremen as the onboard descriptions and measurements are available for all the cores.

The aim of Expedition 382 is to investigate the long-term climate history of Antarctica, seeking to understand how polar ice sheets responded to changes in insolation and atmospheric CO₂ in the past and how ice sheet evolution influenced global sea level and vice versa.

More information on the expedition

News about the arrival of the cores in Bremen

During the shift meetings, the scientists discuss their progress. Photo: IODP/Marlo Garnsworthy