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Drill Here

The U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy waits while Arctic Spring team members Ken Golden (left) and Chris Polashenski (right) take an ice core from the Chuchki Sea. After collecting samples, scientists brought back the cores to labs on the ship to determine the inner structures of the ice, how porous it is under different conditions, how much light can penetrate it, what conditions cause the ice to melt, and the amount of space for ice algae to live in. Whether investigating what’s beneath the ice, or the properties of it, scientists found an abundance of life spurred by a massive under-ice phytoplankton bloom observed in 2011. (Photo by Amanda Kowalski, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)