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When the opportunity arose to work with 5 million-year-old ice from Antarctica, Hailey Smith jumped at the chance. 

Smith, a fourth-year undergraduate student, had spent the past year working with graduate student mentor Liam Kirkpatrick on a research project to decipher the origins of layering in ice core segments from Antarctica. These ice cores give us insights into atmospheric conditions millions of years ago.

Now Smith was able to test their methods on actual ice cores stored at the National Science Foundation Ice Core Facility near Denver. Over a week in April, she joined colleagues from Center for Oldest Ice Exploration (COLDEX) working in subzero temperatures in the facility’s massive freezers, unpacking ice newly arrived from Antarctica and making cuts and electrical conductivity measurements to prepare the ice for further analysis.

“It was such an amazing experience, and so different from my classroom experiences or courses,” said Smith, who will graduate this month with a degree in Earth and space sciences. “I think my favorite part was just seeing the research that I’ve been doing and then having the hands-on experience with it. I take any chance I can get to be involved in research.”

Smith is a first-generation student from rural northeastern Washington, and she credits this research experience — topped off by the research trip to Denver — as pivotal to her undergraduate career at the University of Washington. 

It’s really exciting to be able to have this opportunity and show my family and other people from back home that anything can happen, as long as you really try for it,” she said.

Smith and Kirkpatrick, a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in Earth and space sciences, were paired as a research team through their involvement with the UW College of the Environment’s Identity, Belonging and Inquiry in Science program, an evidence-based mentoring program that connects undergraduate students interested in research with graduate student mentors in the geosciences. As part of this program, graduate students are able to give undergraduates a window into highly advanced and specialized research they otherwise might not get from classes.

Their research trip this spring involved handling some of the oldest ice in the world. Smith, Kirkpatrick and colleagues met in Denver to unpack the ice and make precise cuts and measurements. This work will help other ice core researchers and geophysicists across the country choose ice to study based on their detailed data.

Ice cores are important historical records because they help us understand past climate and greenhouse gas changes to improve future climate models. The Allan Hills region of Antarctica, the focus of the COLDEX project and Smith’s work, has yielded the oldest ice cores ever recovered. But these cores are complex, with sections of younger and older ice interspersed throughout the ice column. The electrical conductivity measurements made by Smith and colleagues provide a first look at the composition and structure of layers in the ice, helping to identify the most compelling sections of cores for detailed measurements.

The week-long research trip with COLDEX, an NSF Science and Technology Center, tested the mettle of everyone involved. Most of the work was done in a massive, walk-in freezer at temperatures around -10 degrees Fahrenheit. The team of seven researchers from across the country moved 100-pound ice cores and cut them using a giant band saw before measurements could be made. 

Then, Smith and Kirkpatrick measured the electrical conductivity of each ice core section by moving electrodes along the ice, producing data that popped up in real-time on a screen in the freezer. Smith’s research suggests that sections with higher conductivity are better candidates for providing insight into past atmospheric conditions. 

“Hailey was in the freezer on day one and through the entire week, and got to work on a ton of really cool ice. And, there were moments where the data popped up and it wasn’t exactly what we were expecting,” Kirkpatrick said. “It’s really great that she was there at such an exciting time.”

Like most fieldwork, sometimes equipment falters or code breaks, especially in the ultra-cold freezer environment at the facility. Smith was amazed and impressed by how her fellow scientists took these issues in stride, troubleshooting and coming up with solutions or alternatives on the fly. 

“It was fun seeing their ingenuity just come together right then and there,” Smith said. “These scientists are amazingly smart and they have put so much time and effort into this, and there are still things that are just out of your control. It showed me that it happens to everyone.”

For Kirkpatrick, the work with COLDEX has defined his graduate experience at the UW. Working with faculty advisers T.J. Fudge and Eric Steig, Kirkpatrick developed a new way to use electrical conductivity measurements, building on their past use with ice cores since the 1980s. Their new method maps layers of higher and lower conductivity in 3-D, so that researchers can see changes in ice composition at the centimeter scale.

Most of the current COLDEX ice comes from the Allan Hills location on the margins of the Antarctic ice sheet. While other projects have focused ice coring efforts to find old ice in interior Antarctica, the U.S. took a unique approach and explored this region where old ice is situated much closer to the surface. This site lets researchers examine the composition of atmospheres over the last 6 million years, much older than previously possible. 

“Allan Hills is a really unique place, and we’re finding ways to apply these really established techniques in new and creative ways to answer new questions,” Kirkpatrick said.

While doing their measurements, Smith and Kirkpatrick discovered abrupt transitions, as short as a couple of centimeters, between sections of ice that might be separated in age by millions of years. 

Within days of this exciting discovery, Kirkpatrick wrote up a report and shared it with collaborators on the COLDEX project. Dozens of researchers from about 15 institutions, including many at the UW, are involved with COLDEX fieldwork and research. These scientists and others can request samples from the Denver facility that they then melt and further analyze. The measurements made by Smith and Kirkpatrick will directly inform which samples are cut later this summer. Requests for samples from their measured sections continue pouring in.

This is really exciting science. It was really cool to make some of the first measurements on this ice and to be starting to think about what all this shows,” Kirkpatrick said. “I was positively surprised by the quality of data we had and the relevance to some of the big questions we’re thinking about.”

Back in Seattle, Smith and Kirkpatrick processed and analyzed their results from the research trip. Smith presented their findings at the UW Undergraduate Research Symposium and the Identity, Belonging and Inquiry in Science Symposium, both in May.

Kirkpatrick is preparing for another trip to the ice core facility in July, where he will train another undergraduate student and continue making electrical conductivity measurements to create an even fuller picture of ice core age and quality for future research.

For Smith, who started college as a pre-med major but later found a home in the geosciences, this research experience will inform her future career in hazards mitigation. She plans to begin a master’s program in the fall focused on emergency management and disaster preparedness. 

The biggest thing I’m taking away is if there’s something I want to do or a really big goal that I have, there’s always a route to go that will get me to that goal,” she said. “This has defined my college experience. I think that you have to expect twists and turns and for it to be very nonlinear, which has been good for me.”

The University of Washington College of the Environment’s Identity, Belonging and Inquiry in Science program is supported through funding from the National Science Foundation under an award to UW faculty members José Guzmán (principal investigator), Mikelle Nuwer and Cynthia Levine (co-principal investigators), and Jane Dolliver (program assistant).

Story by Michelle Ma. Photos by Mark Stone. Video by Andre Quiles.