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It's cold where
Eric Cravens works. Really cold.
As the assistant curator at the U.S. National Ice Core Laboratory, it's Cravens' job to oversee, catalog and sample the ice cores stored in the lab's refrigerated warehouse, maintained at minus 36 degrees Celsius. In Fahrenheit terms, that's nearly 33 degrees below zero.
When Cravens needs to retrieve one of the silver cylinders containing an ice core, he dons a heavy jumpsuit, boots, gloves and a hat -- preferably one with earflaps.
"When it's 105 or 110 degrees out, it's a great place to hang out," he said.
The National Ice Core Laboratory is located at the Denver Federal Center at Sixth Avenue and Kipling Street. It stores the ice cores collected from locations such as Antarctica and Greenland, and ships samples to researchers around the world who use them to study climate change.
Ice cores are good for giving detailed information about temperature, precipitation, chemistry and gas composition that goes back hundreds of thousands of years.
When a sample is requested, Cravens tracks down the particular ice core out of the nearly 14,500 canisters, saws off a chunk of it and then sends it on its way, using FedEx.
"We're actually pretty paranoid about melting ice," Cravens said, adding that each sample is packed so that it could last two days beyond its expected arrival date, just in case.
In order to get a sample from the ice core, Cravens takes it out of the refrigerated warehouse into the work area, maintained at a relatively balmy minus 25 degrees C. What tool does the chemistry, biochemisty and developmental biology degree-holder use to cut the sample from the core? A band saw, just like you'd find in a carpenter's workshop.
"You've got to cut it somehow," he said. He revs up the saw and pushes a block of ice through. "I kind of miss running the saw most of the time."
That is what the University of Colorado grad did mostly when he came to NICL in 2000 after working for a research firm for five years.
He spent a few months at an ice-core drilling site in Greenland in 2001 and 2002, working on the ice core processing line running a saw.
"I pretty much ended up in the middle of the Greenland ice sheet without knowing anybody," Cravens said. "It was quite the adventure."
The 36-year-old lives in Arvada with his wife and 4-1/2-year-old daughter. He was born in Denver and grew up in Broomfield, and knew since fourth grade that he wanted to be a scientist, he said.
In addition to his duties overseeing, cataloging and sampling the ice cores, Cravens helps visiting scientists who conduct research at NICL, gives tours to visitors and, in a pinch, even serves as the lab's IT guy - that variety is why he likes his job.
"There's always something different going on," he said.