The 8th International Ice Drill Symposium

Sub-glacial Drilling at Pirrit Hills, Antarctica

30 Sept 2019, 11:40

20m

The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters

Oral Session 1

Speaker

Mr Tanner Kuhl (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Description

The Agile Sub-Ice Geological (ASIG) Drill system was first used at Pirrit Hills, Antarctica during the 2016-2017 field season, when IDDO (Ice Drilling Design & Operations, now IDP) retrieved 8 meters of granite core from under 150 meters of ice. This is the first time that a rock core more than a meter long has been retrieved from beneath glacial ice. A previous borehole was abandoned due to probable hydro-fracture of the surrounding ice near the bedrock surface at approximately 100 meters depth. This presentation describes drill system performance in the field at Pirrit Hills, lessons learned from this experience, and results from some recent analyses of the drilling process.