The half-century since the first deep ice-core drilling at Camp Century, Greenland, has seen many innovations in methods of ice sample extraction, analysis and interpretation. From the initial evaluations of ice impurities, water isotopic composition and gas content published in the 1960's, ice core sciences have developed into many specialized fields including isotopic diffusion, multiple-isotope systematics, trace gases and their isotopic compositions, ice structure and physical properties, high-resolution analysis of minor and trace impurities, and studies of DNA and radiochemistry in ice, among many others. Great challenges remain in the field of ice coring sciences, including the identification of suitable sites for recovery of million-year-old ice, greater integration of climate records from both coastal and inland ice coring sites, and ice core-based investigations of glaciological phenomena such as streaming flow, folding of layers and basal ice properties. This session welcomes all contributions reporting the state-of-the-art in ice coring sciences, including drilling and processing, analytical techniques, results and interpretations of ice core records from polar ice sheets and mid- and low-latitude glaciers, remote and autonomous methods of surveying ice stratigraphy, and related modelling research.