M Corkill, T Toyota, D Nomura, KM Meiners, P Wongpan, R Akino, ... (2025) A novel probe to sample dissolved and particulate matter in sea ice at high vertical resolution. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene 13 (1) https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2024.00053 

Sea ice can be interspersed vertically with both permeable and impermeable layers. These features can be smaller than a few centimetres but are important for understanding biogeochemical cycles in sea ice. Traditionally, sea-ice samples are collected by drilling into the ice with a rotating core barrel with a cutting head. Ice cores are extracted and then cut into sections that are melted to collect the variable of interest. Drawbacks to this method include difficulty cutting sections smaller than a few centimetres thick and contamination of samples. Brines may also drain from their in-situ locations and be lost, meaning that important micro-environments in sea ice may be overlooked or misrepresented. To address these drawbacks, we developed a sea-ice melt probe that bores into sea ice and collects high-resolution samples. 

Guo, J.A., Strzepek, R.F., Yuan, Z. et al. Effects of ocean alkalinity enhancement on plankton in the Equatorial Pacific. Commun Earth Environ 6, 270 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02248-7

Ocean alkalinity enhancement, using alkaline substances to convert seawater carbon dioxide into carbonate, could influence marine plankton communities. Experiments in the Equatorial Pacific examined sodium hydroxide, olivine, and steel slag, showing sodium hydroxide had a negligible effect, olivine disrupted plankton, and steel slag moderately changed communities.