Equipment

IDDO maintains and operates existing ice drilling equipment and develops new systems with two principal foci:
1. to provide high quality ice cores, and
2. to produce boreholes that provide access to the interior and beds of ice sheets and glaciers for such purposes as embedding instruments, collecting gas samples, setting seismic charges, studying subglacial processes, and studying subglacial geology.



Blue Ice Drill

blue ice drill



New to the IDDO drill inventory is the Blue Ice Drill, an agile drill capable of retrieving cores of approximately 9 ½ inch diameter to depths up to 15 meters in solid ice. The drill, developed for the University of California at San Diego, was used with great success to collect samples of "blue ice" on Taylor Glacier during the 2010-11 and 2011-12 Antarctic field seasons.

Type: Coring
Number in Inventory: 1
Max. Depth Possible: 15 meters
Core Diameter: 9.5 inches
IDDO Driller Required?: yes
Crew Size: 2
Power Requirements/Source: Generator



System Overview
 


Past Deployment
 

Blue Ice Drill Blue Ice Drill

  • 2010-11 season at Taylor Glacier, East Antarctica
    • 580 total meters drilled
    • 34 holes drilled (21 m max depth)
    • 35 m/day max (w/ 7 drill moves)
    • 35 m (7 holes) = 6-8 hours
    • 21 m (1 hole) = 3.5 hours
      • Approx 4-6 m/hr