Transport, storage and processing of the DML-EPICA ice core

The poster describes the handling of the EPICA (European Project of Ice Coring in Antarctica) ice core from Dronning Maud Land. After logging and packing the cores are stored in PP-boxes (size 110*35*45 cm) at the drilling site (underground core buffer of the drill and science trench) until the boxes are flown to the German base Neumayer at the coast. There the boxes are stored in freezers, which serve also for ship transport via Cape Town to Bremerhaven, where the voyage of the boxes end in a commercial cold store. The inventory of the boxes as well as the complete store is documented in a database.For EPICA AWI undertook a big effort to reconstruct its cold room facilities. The main storage for ice cores was outsourced to a commercial cold store. The biggest cold room (300 m3) with two levels is now used for ice core processing with a line of horizontal (on loan from University of Bern) and vertical saws, a bench with line-scan camera and optional a bench for DEP and gamma density measurements.In June 2002 the first 450m of the core were processed. For this purpose in addition an ECM bench was provided by University of Bern and devices for CFA (Universities Bern and Heidelberg, AWI) and FIC (University of Firence) were installed. The core was cutted according to the requests of the various labs. The cutting plan was authorized by the EPICAScientific Steering Committee. After the processing campaign the frozen samples were shipped to the various labs. For July and September 2003 it is planned to process the next 1100 m of core drilled in the 2002/03 season. For co-operation within the project data are made available through a data base to which access is only possible for the national representatives of EPICA. Final results of the analyses will be made accessible via the database PANGAEA (www.pangaea.de) as soon as they are published.