Maersk Line shipping recently moved a shipment of ice cores from Antarctica to Europe
May 28, 2013
Shipping challenges come in all shapes and sizes, but few are trickier than shipping ice cores from Antarctica to Europe.
Ice cores, each slightly longer than a baseball bat, are regularly drilled from the sea ice of Antarctica.
The cores contain microorganisms such as algae, bacteria and viruses used in global warming studies, and must be transported without melting or breaking.
Maersk Line shipping
yesterday described moving a shipment of ice cores from Antarctica to a European science laboratory recently.
According to Maersk, the first leg of the voyage began at the Scott Base in Antarctica.
The ice was packed into a reefer container and loaded onboard a chartered supply vessel, taking it to the port of Lyttelton, New Zealand.
The container was kept ‘off power’ for a six minutes during both the discharge and re-load operation.
To maintain a constant temperature of 30C throughout the ensuing 42-day transit time from New Zealand to Europe, the cargo was repacked into Magnum reefer container.
Then it was off to the next stopover of Tanjung Pelepas, Malaysia.
Finally, after covering another 5,000 nautical miles, the ice cores reached the port of Antwerp late last month.
Université Libre de Bruxelles Professor Jean-Louis Tison, head of the science team that
spent weeks drilling the ice cores, says the cargo arrived in good condition for study.
“Our hearts were racing when we opened the first pallet to see if the ice had travelled safely and kept intact the wealth of biological and scientific information we need for our studies,” Tison says.