A section of ice core with a thick layer of sediment in the middle. The core was retrieved from Lake Vida in Antarctica at a depth of ~21 meters. This research was conducted as part of the 2010 Lake Vida expedition, the purpose of which was to access the isolated and ice-bound brine ecosystem and underlying sediments in this unusual, mostly frozen lake--one of the highest and coldest of the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Credit: Alison E Murray, Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nev.