Equipment

IDDO maintains and operates existing drills and borehole logging winches, 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, studying subglacial geology, collecting subglacial bedrock core, and borehole logging.
 

Winkie Drill

The Winkie Drill is an agile commercially-available rock coring unit designed by Minex and purchased by IDDO for subglacial rock coring. IDDO has adapted the base unit to allow for ice augering and ice coring applications in the polar regions. This drill is one of two rock coring drills in the IDDO inventory (see also ASIG Drill). Using standard AW34 drill rod, the system has a depth capability of 120 meters in blue ice. The drill uses traditional forced fluid circulation during coring, as is common in rock coring applications. All components of the Winkie Drill system can fit in a Twin Otter or similar-sized aircraft.


The assembled Winkie Drill system at the Ohio Range, Antarctica, during the 2016-2017 summer field season. Credit: Grant Boeckmann

Packaged rock cores drilled with the Winkie Drill during the 2016-2017 summer field season. Credit: Sujoy Mukhopadhyay

The Ohio Range field team (2016-2017 summer field season) after their first successful rock core with the Winkie Drill. Credit: Sujoy Mukhopadhyay


Equipment Details

Name Winkie Drill
Type Rock Coring; Ice Coring/Augering
Number in Inventory 1
Max. Depth Possible in Ice 120 meters using standard AW34 drill rod
Max. Depth Possible in Rock 120 meters (designed as a rock drill; should be possible with enough time and fluid)
Hole Diameter (augering) 50 - 52 mm
Rock Core Diameter 32.5 mm
Ice Core Diameter 33.4 mm
Core Length 1.5 m; 3 m
IDDO Driller Required? Yes, 2 drillers
Drill Fluid Required? Yes
Power Requirements/Source Generator 2.5 kW
Estimated Drilling Time Augering Ice: 0.4-0.5 m/min rate of penetration
Coring Ice: ?
Rock: 0.02-0.05 m/min rate of penetration
Above values do not include rod tripping time (can be significant in deep holes)
Time to move (breakdown and setup) 3 hours (set up time)
Helicopter Transportable? Yes
Light Aircraft Transportable? Yes
Trench Required? No
Shipping Weight 2,200 lbs
Shipping Cube 110
Restrictions Current drill capabilities require the drill site to be blue ice up to the surface, without cracks, and frozen to the bed.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement No. PLR-1327315 to Dartmouth, and sub awards to University of New Hampshire, University of Wisconsin and Colorado School of Mines which support the work of the Ice Drilling Program Office (IDPO). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.