Fieldwork

The U.S. Ice Drilling Program (IDP), in collaboration with its Science Advisory Board and with input from the research community, updated the Long Range Science Plan. This plan aims to articulate goals and make recommendations for the direction of U.S. ice coring and drilling science in a wide variety of areas of scientific inquiry and to make recommendations for the development of drilling technology, infrastructure, and logistical support needed to enable the science. A companion document, the Long Range Drilling Technology Plan, provides details about drills available through IDP. Both plans are revisited and revised as appropriate each spring. The Long Range Science Plan is available at https://icedrill.org/long-range-science-plan. The Long Range Drilling Technology Plan is available at https://icedrill.org/long-range-drilling-technology-plan.

If you envision the need for ice drilling for your project in the coming decade, please make sure that the high-level articulation of your science is captured in the Long Range Science Plan. If it isn’t, send several sentences to IceDrill@Dartmouth.edu describing the science driver and the envisioned field date and location for your project so that your plans are voiced in this planning document.

In August 2024, the U.S. Ice Drilling Program (IDP) received a National Science Foundation renewal grant for the coming five years (award number 2318480) to continue providing community leadership and to operate and maintain a facility to support ice drilling engineering, field support, and education and outreach. IDP’s mission is to conduct integrated planning for the ice drilling science and technology communities and to provide drilling technology and operational support that will enable the community to advance the frontiers of science. 

If you are preparing an NSF proposal that includes any support from IDP, you must include a Letter of Support from IDP in the proposal. Researchers are asked to provide IDP with a detailed support request three weeks prior to the date the Letter of Support is required. Early submissions are strongly encouraged.

Scientists who seek to include IDP education and outreach activities associated with U.S. ice coring or drilling science projects should contact Louise Huffman at Louise.T.Huffman@Dartmouth.edu during their proposal preparation stage.

For additional information on requesting IDP support, visit our website at https://icedrill.org/requesting-field-support or contact us at IceDrill@Dartmouth.edu.

Between April and July, IDP deployed ten people to Greenland for a variety of projects, leaving two people in Madison, WI, for the summer. A team of five deployed for the second season of the GreenDrill project (NSF award numbers 1933927, 1933938, 1934477, 1933802). While ASIG Drill operations were canceled due to an inability to land LC-130 Hercules aircraft at the field site, Engineers Elliot Moravec and Tanner Kuhl and Driller Forest Rubin Harmon succeeded in collecting subglacial rock core with the Winkie Drill in two boreholes. A team of five also deployed to Summit Station to support PI Eric Saltzman’s project (NSF award number 2243540) with the new 700 Drill and to conduct driller training in a tent adjacent to the 700 Drill site. Newer IDP Engineers and Drillers received some initial cross-training on the use of the 700 Drill, Foro 400 Drill, Eclipse Drill, and smaller equipment like the Chipmunk Drill and a Hand Auger used in conjunction with the new prototype Sidewinder.

IDP is also supporting several PI-operated hand auger projects in Greenland and Alaska. PIs Joel Harper and Toby Meierbachtol (NSF award numbers 2113391 and 2113392) used an IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder at several locations in southwest Greenland to drill cores to 30 meters depth. PIs Kathy Licht and Trinity Hamilton (NSF award numbers 2039854 and 2039582) are using a SIPRE Hand Auger to sample the seasonal ice that forms in front of Greenland’s Isunnguata Sermia Glacier and Leverett Glacier. PIs Christian Andresen, Mark Lara, and Mario Muscarella (NSF award numbers 2311075, 2311073, 2311074) are using a SIPRE Hand Auger in the Prudhoe Bay region of Alaska to core surficial ice wedges. And PI Bora Cetin (NSF award number 2220518) is using a SIPRE Hand Auger with a Makita battery-powered earth auger tool to collect permafrost cores from Nome, Alaska.

The second quarter saw the start of the 2024 spring/summer field season. IDP is providing support to the following projects:

(1) The Collaborative Research: GreenDrill: The response of the northern Greenland Ice Sheet to Arctic Warmth - Direct constraints from sub-ice bedrock project (PIs Joerg Schaefer, Jason Briner, Rob DeConto, and Sridhar Anandakrishnan; NSF award numbers 1933927, 1933938, 1934477, 1933802) aims to gather new data to test the sensitivity of the northern Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) and its potential to contribute to sea level rise in the future. Specifically, data from the GreenDrill project will better constrain the response of the GrIS to past periods of warmth and address the hypothesis that the northern GrIS is more sensitive to Arctic warming than the southern GrIS. During the project’s second field season, the team will use the Winkie Drill to drill in northern Greenland to obtain bedrock samples from below the ice sheet and, if successful, analyze a suite of cosmogenic nuclides (Beryllium-10, Aluminum-26, Chlorine-36, Carbon-14, and Neon-21) in the bedrock samples that can act as signatures of changes to the GrIS margin. These data will deliver direct observations of periods when the GrIS was substantially smaller than today, and ice sheet margins retreated inland. Results will be incorporated into a numerical ice sheet model with a built-in cosmogenic nuclide module to identify plausible ice sheet histories. The modeling experiments will help understand the mechanisms and climate forcing underlying past periods of ice sheet retreat and help inform predictions of the future. A first-order map of sea level rise fingerprints and inundation scenarios for major port cities will be produced based on the melting scenarios

(2) The Atmospheric H2 in the Northern Hemisphere over the past Millennium project (PI Eric Saltzman; NSF award number 2243540) will analyze molecular hydrogen (H2) in an ice core from Summit, Greenland, to reconstruct atmospheric changes in H2 over the past millennium. Using the 700 Drill, the project will drill a new ice core at Summit and extract air from the samples in the field, with subsequent analysis for H2, Ne, and CH4. This will be the first record of past atmospheric H2 prior to the onset of the industrial era. The results will reveal the natural variability in paleo-atmospheric H2 and how it relates to climate change. The resulting data will provide a baseline for assessing how human activities have influenced atmospheric H2 since the preindustrial era. The results of this study will inform global assessments of how the future hydrogen economy will affect atmospheric composition and climate.

(3) The Collaborative Research: AON Network for Observing Transformation of the Greenland Ice Sheet Firn Layer project (PIs Joel Harper and Toby Meierbachtol; NSF award numbers 2113391 and 2113392) will establish a network of instrumented sites to observe the transformation of the Greenland Ice sheet’s percolation zone firn layer. Using the IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder, repeat cores will be collected over five years to track density and ice content changes, and instrumentation installed in core holes will monitor firn temperature evolution and compaction of the firn layer. The data from these efforts will be of high value to scientists focused on changes in storage capacity of the firn layer, process details of meltwater infiltration in cold firn, and the influence of firn compaction and melt on satellite-observed ice sheet elevation.

(4) The NSFGEO-NERC: Collaborative Research: Chemistry and Biology under Low Flow Hydrologic Conditions Beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet Revealed through Naturally Emerging Subglacial Water project (PIs Kathy Licht and Trinity Hamilton; NSF award numbers 2039854 and 2039582) seeks to understand the effect of large glaciers on weathering processes beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet and the consequences for life. During summer, nutrients and other products are flushed out of the Greenland Ice Sheet with water from melting ice. While these products have been sampled in spring and summer, it is not known how weathering processes are different during winter. In this project, researchers used a SIPRE Hand Auger to sample the seasonal ice that forms in front of two of Greenland’s glacial outlets, Isunnguata Sermia and Leverett Glacier, during the freezing months to assess the chemistry and microbiology processes that reflect wintertime conditions beneath the ice sheet – periods when input of fresh meltwater is minimal. These samples will increase knowledge of winter conditions under the Greenland Ice Sheet and help better understand the interior portions of the ice sheet, which are largely inaccessible. Such information will help assess past conditions when colder atmospheric conditions resulted in minimal meltwater input through the ice sheet and to the glacial bed. These analyses will inform understanding of the role of glaciers on earth’s nutrient cycles presently, under past ice age conditions, and in a future deglaciating world. 

(5) IDP Driller Training Opportunity (PI Mary Albert; NSF award number 1836328) seeks to cross-train IDP engineers and support staff on the operation of several NSF-owned drills maintained by IDP. IDP Lead Engineer Jay Johnson, who is overseeing the use of the 700 Drill at Summit Station, Greenland, for PI Eric Saltzman’s project, will cross-train IDP Engineers Barb Birrittella, Umberto Stefanini, Andrew Haala, and Field Support Manager Jess Ackerman on operation of the new 700 Drill, the Foro 400 Drill, an Eclipse Drill, and the Chipmunk Drill. The team will also test the recently fabricated Sidewinder prototype with an IDDO Hand Auger. As IDP and its international colleagues navigate challenges with a shortage of trained and experienced equipment operators, this opportunity provided by NSF and supported by Battelle ARO will help additional IDP staff gain familiarity with several drill systems that regularly deploy to the Arctic and Antarctic.

(6) The Collaborative Research: Predicting Micro to Macro-scale Hot-spot and Hot-moment Dynamics project (PIs Christian Andresen, Mark Lara, Mario Muscarella; NSF award numbers 2311075, 2311073, 2311074) seeks to determine the micro-scale mechanisms driving hot-spot and hot-moment carbon dynamics, for improving predictions of macro-scale carbon balance. Climate warming in the Arctic is thawing frozen soils, also known as permafrost. The thawing of permafrost is reshaping surface topography and increasing the release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. As part of the project, the researchers seek to describe biogeochemical consequences across scales in response to abrupt permafrost degradation, with a focal area in the northern Alaska Arctic Coastal Plain. As part of the field validation of ice-wedge degradation stage mapping, the researchers will use a SIPRE Hand Auger to core the surface of ice-wedges (~1 meter) and make observations of the layering of the ice-cores to determine the age of the surface degradation. During the 2024 field season, the researchers will work in the Prudhoe Bay region of Alaska.

At Allan Hills, driller Elizabeth Morton used an Eclipse Drill to drill to 89.31 meters in support of the first drilling season for COLDEX (I-187-M; PI Shackleton). Several small rocks were encountered in the hole, limiting borehole depth for the season, but the hole may be re-entered and deepened during the 2024-2025 season. Driller Mike Jayred set-up the Blue Ice Drill (BID) at a nearby location and worked with IDP engineers in Madison to troubleshoot some control box challenges. The BID was used to drill and collect ice core to 144.27 meters depth. The BID hole may also be deepened during the 2024-2025 season. The science team conducted additional shallow coring at various locations using hand augers.

Despite significant aircraft and traverse delays and challenges as well as weather impacts, IDP engineers Barb Birrittella and Tanner Kuhl successfully operated the Rapid Air Movement (RAM) Drill around WAIS Divide and the Small Hot Water Drill (SHWD) on Lower Thwaites Glacier (LTG) in support of the GHOST project (C-442-M; PI Anandakrishnan). Fourteen holes were drilled with the RAM Drill around WAIS Divide to a depth of 35-45 meters. The old drilling arch at WAIS Divide, occupied between 2007-2016, was accessed and a 2km long fiber was lowered into the DISC Drill (WDC06A) borehole. Seismic shots were then detonated in the RAM Drill holes surrounding the arch to collect bed-mapping and depth data. At LTG, thirty-two holes were drilled with the SHWD to 50 meters for seismic survey work.

After the Australian Antarctic Program had to postpone their drilling for 2023-2024, IDP quickly worked to contract with Icefield Instruments Inc. for the services of driller Etienne Gros. Following an ocean voyage on the Korean Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) RV Araon, Gros operated the Foro 400 Drill on Canisteo Peninsula with the help of PI Peter Neff (I-345-M) and graduate student Julia Andreasen. The depth goal of 150 meters was reached in only six drilling days following efficient cargo and personnel transport between the RV Araon and the Canisteo Peninsula field site with two helicopters.

IDP is providing support to the following projects during the 2023-2024 Antarctic field season:

(1) The STC Integrative Partnership: The Center For Oldest Ice Exploration (COLDEX): Shallow Ice Coring project (PI Ed Brook; NSF award 2019719; Field lead Sarah Shackleton (I-187-M)) will use the Blue Ice Drill and the Badger-Eclipse Drill to drill several cores between 80 and 160 meters deep from the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area. Cores drilled through the Antarctic ice sheet provide a remarkable window into the evolution of Earth’s climate and unique samples of the ancient atmosphere. The clear link between greenhouse gases and climate revealed by ice cores underpins much of the scientific understanding of climate change. Unfortunately, the existing data do not extend far enough back in time to reveal key features of climates warmer than today. The cores collected at Allan Hills will contribute to our understanding of how Earth’s climate system operated during warmer periods and why the periodicity of glacial cycles lengthened from 40,000 to 100,000 years approximately 1 million years ago.

(2) The NSF-NERC: Ground Geophysics Survey of Thwaites Glacier project (PI Sridhar Anandakrishnan; NSF award 1738934; C-442-M) will conduct its final field season in the Thwaites Glacier region of West Antarctica. The project will conduct seismic and radar surveys along transect lines parallel and perpendicular to the flow of Thwaites Glacier. Based at WAIS Divide, they will separate into teams collecting different measurements. The Vibroseis and Active traverse team will move along transect lines while acquiring radar data and conducting active source seismic surveys. The Passive seismic team will recover Earthscope SAGE-provided nodes at GHOST Subglacial Ridge. The ApRES and Delores teams will collect radar measurements along the parallel Thwaites Glacier transect line, conduct Magnetotelluric measurements, and retrieve radar/GPS stations deployed in the area during the previous season. The Vibroseis and Active traverse team will use the Rapid Air Movement (RAM) Drill to create the shot holes required for the seismic measurements.

(3) The RAPID: US-Korean Collaboration to Build a Ross-Amundsen Ice Core Array (RAICA) Along the West Antarctic Coastline project (PI Peter Neff; NSF award 2304836; I-345-M) aims to recover a ~100 meter long ice core from an ice rise in the Amundsen Sea region of coastal West Antarctica. The ice core will be used to reconstruct annual climate and environmental variability over the past 200-400 years, constrain surface mass balance variability and trends over the (pre)instrumental period, and contribute greater temporal perspective to ongoing investigations of Thwaites Glacier – an extensive system that will contribute significantly to global sea level rise for centuries to come. This project collaborates with Korean Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) scientists and is supported via the KOPRI icebreaker RV ARAON. Martin Peninsula, between the Getz Ice Shelf and the Dotson Ice Shelf, has been chosen as the primary site based on existing airborne snow radar data and the high snow accumulation rate, which preserves high-resolution paleoclimate information. The specific drill site will be chosen based on scientific value and logistical constraints associated with the RV ARAON cruise.

(4) The Sea-Ice Snow Microbial Communities’ Impact on Antarctic Bromocarbon Budgets and Processes project (PI Karen Junge; NSF award 2031121; B-321-M) will test if bromocarbons in sea ice are produced and degraded by microalgae and bacteria found in sea ice, snow, and the interface between the two. The researchers will use a Kovacs Hand Auger to drill several cores (up to 24) through ~2.5 meters of sea ice twice per week for six weeks. The cores will be used to collect chemical and biological measurements of sea ice and snow to determine bromocarbon concentrations, microbial activity associated with them, and intra-cellular genes and proteins involved in bromocarbon metabolism. Bromocarbons are known to contribute to stratospheric ozone depletion over Antarctica. This project will test if they are produced and degraded by algae and bacteria found in sea ice, snow, and the interface between the two.

(5) The CRREL Support to the Leverett Glacier project (PI Renee Melendy; T-941-M) involves a ground campaign utilizing ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys to validate remote sensing imagery to find a less crevassed route to Leverett Glacier. As part of the fieldwork, the team will collect snow property data (snow density and hardness) to determine best-practice snow bridge crossing criteria for the area and ice velocity movement data using GPS station installations. The team will have an IDDO Hand Auger with them.

(6) The Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) Activities: McMurdo Shear Zone project (PI Renee Melendy; T-940-M) will provide annual shear zone crevasse detection and mitigation for the South Pole Traverse (SPoT). The team will have an IDDO Hand Auger with them.

(7) The Collaborative Research: Site Survey for Subglacial Bedrock Exposure Dating at the Margin of the Wilkes Basin in Northern Victoria Land project (PI Greg Balco; NSF award 1744844; I-158-M) aims to establish, through direct geological evidence, whether complete deglaciation of East Antarctic marine basins took place during past warm-climate periods. The researchers will assess the feasibility of achieving this goal using cosmogenic-nuclide measurements on bedrock buried under the ice sheet. During the single field season (2023-24) reconnaissance and site survey, the researchers will conduct snowmobile-towed radar surveys, geologic mapping, and rock/sediment sampling at several sites in the western Outback Nunatacks region of northern Victoria Land. The researchers will also have a Kovacs Hand Auger with them.

The U.S. Ice Drilling Program (IDP), in collaboration with its Science Advisory Board and with input from the research community, updated the Long Range Science Plan. The purpose of this plan is to articulate goals and make recommendations for the direction of U.S. ice coring and drilling science in a wide variety of areas of scientific inquiry and to make recommendations for the development of drilling technology, infrastructure, and logistical support needed to enable the science. A companion document, the Long Range Drilling Technology Plan, provides details about drills available through IDP. Both plans are revisited and revised as appropriate each spring. The Long Range Science Plan is available at https://icedrill.org/long-range-science-plan. The Long Range Drilling Technology Plan is available at https://icedrill.org/long-range-drilling-technology-plan.

If you envision the need for ice drilling for your project in the coming decade, please make sure that the high-level articulation of your science is captured in the Long Range Science Plan. If it isn’t, send several sentences to IceDrill@Dartmouth.edu describing the science driver and the envisioned field date and location for your project so that your plans are voiced in this planning document.

During the 2023 Arctic Spring/Summer field season, IDP supported ten principal investigators by providing equipment or equipment and IDP driller support. The first of two GreenDrill seasons was completed in northwest Greenland, where an IDP Winkie Drill was used to drill one 97-meter access hole and collect 201.5 cm of rocky sediment over thirteen coring attempts. In the nearby ASIG Drill camp, IDP drillers successfully recovered from a hydrofracture event and collected 7.5 meters of subglacial material, including 4.5 meters of bedrock core! At Summit Station, Greenland, a 150-meter hole was successfully drilled using the Blue Ice Drill, and beneficial testing was subsequently conducted with various cutter, shoe, and barrel configurations down to 170 meters. In June and July, a team of three IDP drillers worked up on Mount Waddington in British Columbia to drill a hole to near bedrock with the Thermal Drill. After encountering ice entrained with rocks near the bed, the team successfully deviated around a rock at 204 meters depth and completed the hole at 219 meters.

The second quarter saw the start of the 2023 spring/summer field season. IDP is providing support to the following projects:

(1) The Collaborative Research: Investigating the Rate of Potential Biological in Situ Gas Production of CO and CH4 in Arctic Ice project (PIs Nathan Chellman, Joe McConnell, Ed Brook, and Christopher Carr; NSF award numbers 2139293, 2139295, and 2139294) plans to use the Blue Ice Drill to recover a 150 meter-long, large-diameter ice core to measure methane (CH4) and carbon monoxide (CO) trapped in bubbles in the ice. The researchers will set up a fully operational ice core melter and analysis system in the field to better understand the processes that impact the CH4 and CO gas records from ice cores. High-depth-resolution records of CO, and to a lesser extent CH4, in Arctic ice cores show evidence of non-atmospheric anomalies that are poorly understood. One potential source of such anomalies is biological activity within the ice. Microbes can be active at temperatures well below freezing, and ice cores are subjected to relatively warm temperatures after the ice is extracted from glaciers and ice sheets while they are stored or transported prior to measurement. The project aims to assess the rate of in situ production of CO and methane CH4 in Arctic ice and relate in situ gas production to ice storage conditions, chemistry, and microbiology.

(2) The Collaborative Research: NSFGEO-NERC: Recent changes in Arctic biogenic sulfur aerosol from a central Greenland ice core project (PIs Becky Alexander and Jihong Cole-Dai; NSF award numbers 2230350 and 2230351) will use the IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder power drive to drill four 20-meter deep firn cores at Summit, Greenland. The firn cores will span the last 30 years of snow accumulation. They will be used to investigate the trends in methanesulfonic acid (MSA), biogenic sulfate, and total biogenic sulfur over this period when anthropogenic NOx emissions from North America and Europe began to decline (after the mid-1990s). In addition, the researchers will measure ion and MSA concentrations and sulfur isotopes of sulfate in the shallow ice cores. This will yield an additional 16 years of data compared to the current record from an ice core drilled in 2007, allowing the researchers to examine whether the increasing trend in MSA since 2000 C.E. continues as NOx emissions have declined.

(3) The NSFGEO-NERC: Collaborative Research: Chemistry and Biology under Low Flow Hydrologic Conditions Beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet Revealed through Naturally Emerging Subglacial Water project (PIs Kathy Licht and Trinity Hamilton; NSF award number 2039854 and 2039582) seeks to understand the effect of large glaciers on weathering processes beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet and the consequences for life. During summer, nutrients and other products are flushed out of the Greenland Ice Sheet with water from melting ice. While these products have been sampled in spring and summer, it is not known how weathering processes are different during winter. In this project, researchers will use a SIPRE Hand Auger to sample the seasonal ice that forms in front of two of Greenland’s glacial outlets, Isunnguata Sermia and Leverett Glacier, during the freezing months to assess the chemistry and microbiology processes that reflect wintertime conditions beneath the ice sheet – periods when input of fresh meltwater is minimal. These samples will increase knowledge of winter conditions under the Greenland Ice Sheet and help better understand the interior portions of the ice sheet, which are largely inaccessible. Such information will help assess past conditions when colder atmospheric conditions resulted in minimal meltwater input through the ice sheet and to the glacial bed. These analyses will inform understanding of the role of glaciers on earth’s nutrient cycles presently, under past ice age conditions, and in a future deglaciating world.

(4) The Collaborative Research: GreenDrill: The response of the northern Greenland Ice Sheet to Arctic Warmth - Direct constraints from sub-ice bedrock project (PIs Joerg Schaefer, Jason Briner, Rob DeConto, and Sridhar Anandakrishnan; NSF award numbers 1933927, 1933938, 1934477, 1933802) aims to gather new data to test the sensitivity of the northern Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) and its potential to contribute to sea level rise in the future. Specifically, data from the GreenDrill project will better constrain the response of the GrIS to past periods of warmth and address the hypothesis that the northern GrIS is more sensitive to Arctic warming than the southern GrIS. Using the Agile Sub-Ice Geological Drill and the Winkie Drill, the team will drill in northern Greenland in an effort to obtain bedrock samples from below the ice sheet and, if successful, analyze a suite of cosmogenic nuclides (Beryllium-10, Aluminum-26, Chlorine-36, Carbon-14, and Neon-21) in the bedrock samples that can act as signatures of changes to the GrIS margin. These data will deliver direct observations of periods when the GrIS was substantially smaller than today and ice sheet margins retreated inland. Results will be incorporated into a numerical ice sheet model with a built-in cosmogenic nuclide module to identify plausible ice sheet histories. The modeling experiments will help understand the mechanisms and climate forcing underlying past periods of ice sheet retreat and help inform predictions of the future. A first-order map of sea level rise fingerprints and inundation scenarios for major port cities will be produced based on the melting scenarios.

(5) The GreenDrill Geophysical Site Selection Activities project (PI Sridhar Anandakrishnan; NSF award number 1933802) will conduct geophysical site selection activities for the GreenDrill project including active reflection seismic experiments and radar. Using the Small Hot Water Drill, team members will drill shot holes to 20 meters depth for seismic sources. Approximately 30 shot holes will be drilled each season.

(6) The Collaborative Research: AON Network for Observing Transformation of the Greenland Ice Sheet Firn Layer project (PIs Joel Harper and Toby Meierbachtol; NSF award numbers 2113391 and 2113392) will establish a network of instrumented sites to observe transformation of the Greenland Ice sheet’s percolation zone firn layer. Using the IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder, repeat cores will be collected over five years to track density and ice content changes, and instrumentation installed in core holes will monitor firn temperature evolution and compaction of the firn layer. The data from these efforts will be of high value to scientists focused on changes in storage capacity of the firn layer, process details of meltwater infiltration in cold firn, and the influence of firn compaction and melt on satellite-observed ice sheet elevation.

(7) The Significance of Ice-loss to Landscapes in the Arctic: SILA (Inuit concept of the physical world and weather) project (PIs Brent Christner, Jonathan Martin, Ellen Martin, and Cynthia Barnett; NSF award number 2000649) aims to understand carbon cycling by microorganisms in near-surface glacial ice. Using a Kovacs hand auger, several shallow ice cores 1-2 meters depth will be drilled and analyzed for their microbiology. The researchers aim to understand glacial carbon cycling and estimate the export of organic nutrients to subglacial and proglacial systems. This research is a component of a larger effort to investigate how ecosystems develop, sediments react, and stream water compositions change as glacial retreat exposes landscapes.

(8) The Collaborative Research: P2C2-- Ice Core and Firn Aquifer Studies at Combatant Col, British Columbia, Canada project (PIs Peter Neff and Eric Steig; NSF award number 2002441 and 2001961) aims to recover an ice core at Combatant Col, BC, Canada to reconstruct hydroclimate variability over the last 500 years. Previous work at Combatant Col demonstrates the preservation of annual stratigraphy, water-isotope, and geochemical records reflecting important climate and environmental variables, including atmospheric circulation, snow accumulation, fire activity, and trans-Pacific dust transport. Existing North Pacific ice cores are located exclusively in Alaska and the Yukon. Combatant Col significantly expands the spatial coverage of ice core records while providing a unique hydroclimate record in southwestern British Columbia. This project will conduct detailed radar surveys and ice-flow modeling to better understand the glaciological setting and select the optimal drilling site. During the 2022 field season, radar work and shallow coring using the IDDO Hand Auger were conducted. During the 2023 field season, a core to bedrock will be retrieved using the Electrothermal Drill. Analysis of the ice core will include water isotope ratios and visual stratigraphy. In combination with high-resolution radar imaging, the core from Combatant Col will be used to determine whether the observed firn-aquifer at this site (liquid water is stored perennially above the firn-ice transition) has been a persistent feature at the site or whether it has formed recently, and to determine its impact on glacier energy balance and dynamics. The core will be archived and made available for additional analyses by the ice core research community.

As a reminder, the Antarctic Research Requiring U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) Support for Fieldwork NSF program solicitation (NSF 23-509) requires the submittal of a Concept Outline describing needed logistical support prior to submission of a full proposal. The Concept Outline allows for a preliminary assessment of the logistics feasibility of the proposed activities and feedback to the PI about potential supportability for proposed activities before the development of a full proposal. The Concept Outline requires the same information as the Logistics Requirement and Field Plan. And for projects requesting services from NSF-supported research support facilities (such as IRIS, UNAVCO, PGC, IDP, NCALM, etc.), a letter from the facility indicating the feasibility and additional costs needed to support the proposed research is a requirement for the Logistics Requirement and Field Plan.

If you are preparing a USAP fieldwork proposal that includes any support from IDP, you should include a Letter of Support from IDP in the Concept Outline. Researchers are asked to provide IDP with a detailed support request three weeks prior to the date the Letter of Support is required. Early submissions are strongly encouraged.

For additional information on requesting IDP support, visit our website at https://icedrill.org/requesting-field-support or contact us at IceDrill@Dartmouth.edu.

Following a two-year pandemic-driven postponement of field projects supported by IDP, IDP started deploying people in early November. Challenges with the UTMB PQ process, logistics limitations, and a two-week pause in flights to McMurdo Station required the shuffling of personnel as well as planning with PIs for a reduced scope of fieldwork. Despite many challenges, IDP deployed two engineers to WAIS Divide Camp to support the C-442 GHOST project (PI Sridhar Anandakrishnan). While the team was unable to travel to Thwaites Glacier in the time allowed, IDP Engineers Jay Johnson and Chris Rush were able to assemble the IDP Rapid Air Movement (RAM) 2 Drill after the system had unexpectedly been cold soaking at WAIS Divide since the start of the pandemic. The system functioned well, and 23 holes were drilled for the placement and detonation of seismic charges by the GHOST science team.

At Allan Hills, IDP Drillers Elizabeth Morton and Mike Jayred operated the IDP Foro 400 Drill and the Blue Ice Drill (BID) for PI John Higgins and science field team leader Sarah Shackleton (I-165-M). The BID collected large diameter cores in one borehole to a depth of 92 m. The Foro 400 Drill was used to re-enter a borehole initially drilled during the 2019-2020 season to 135 m. After many days of challenging drilling, green basal ice near the bed was collected at a depth of 205 m.

IDP Engineer Elliot Moravec and IDP Driller/University of Maine Research Assistant Professor Dom Winski deployed to the Hudson Mountains of West Antarctica to complete the second season of a two-season field effort initiated prior to the pandemic. The C-443 GHC team (PI Ryan Venturelli) traveled to Antarctica via Punta Arenas, Chile, and Rothera Station in a project jointly supported by the U.S. Antarctic Program and the British Antarctic Survey. Unfortunately, season operations were plagued by flight delays, moisture in the Eclipse Drill motor sections from being unexpectedly cold-soaked in Antarctica for two seasons due to COVID, and encountering surprise crevasses resulting in temporary work stoppages for safety evaluations. The drillers were ultimately able to drill one borehole through clean ice and dirty ice layers, but a thick frozen clay layer near the bottom of the hole prevented the collection of subglacial rock core with the Winkie Drill.

IDP is providing support to the following three projects during the 2022-2023 Antarctic field season:

(1) The Collaborative Research: Snapshots of Early and Mid-Pleistocene Climate and Atmospheric Composition from the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area project (PIs John Higgins, Ed Brook, Paul Mayewski, and Jeff Severinghaus; NSF awards 1744993, 1745006, 1745007, and 1744832) will collect new ice cores from the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area. Bubbles of ancient air trapped in ice cores have been used to directly reconstruct atmospheric composition, and its links to Antarctic and global climate, over the last 800,000 years. Previous field expeditions to the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area, Antarctica, have recovered ice cores that extend as far back as 2.7 million years. These ice cores extend direct observations of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane concentrations and indirect records of Antarctic climate into a period of Earth’s climate history that represents a plausible geologic analog to future anthropogenic climate change. This project is returning to the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area to recover additional ice cores using the Foro 400 Drill and Blue Ice Drill. The climate records developed from these ice cores will provide new insights into the chemical composition of the atmosphere and Antarctic climate during times of comparable or even greater warmth than the present day.

(2) The NSF-NERC: Geological History Constraints on the Magnitude of Grounding Line Retreat in the Thwaites Glacier System project (PI Ryan Venturelli; NSF award 1738989) contributes to the joint initiative launched by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to substantially improve decadal and longer-term projections of ice loss and sea-level rise originating from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. The project will provide a record of regional sea-level change by establishing chronologies for raised marine beaches as well as the timing and duration of periods of retreat of Thwaites Glacier during the past 10,000 years by sampling and dating bedrock presently covered by Thwaites Glacier via subglacial drilling. Together with climatic and oceanographic conditions from other records, these will provide boundary conditions for past-to-present model simulations as well as those used to predict future glacier changes under a range of climate scenarios. For its second field season, the project will utilize the Badger-Eclipse Drill and Winkie Drill to obtain subglacial bedrock from sites where ice thickness is dynamically linked to grounding-line position in the Thwaites system (specifically in the Hudson Mountains and near Mount Murphy). Observation of significant cosmogenic-nuclide concentrations in these samples would provide direct, unambiguous evidence for past episodes of thinning linked to grounding-line retreat as well as constraints on their timing and duration.

(3) The NSF-NERC: Ground Geophysics Survey of Thwaites Glacier project (PI Sridhar Anandakrishnan; NSF award 1738934) contributes to the joint initiative launched by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to substantially improve decadal and longer-term projections of ice loss and sea-level rise originating from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. The project’s objectives are to learn whether basal conditions allow for rapid retreat of the Thwaites Glacier grounding line or whether retreat may re-stabilize near its current grounding line. These objectives will be achieved by using dedicated ice-flow modeling to guide targeted field surveys and experiments over two seasons, and to measure the most important unknown quantities and incorporate them into the models. Numerical models will be used to generate hypotheses for basal conditions that are testable through geophysical surveys and to project future behavior of Thwaites Glacier after assimilating the resulting data. The geophysical methods include seismic, radar, gravity, and electrical surveys that together allow for a fuller bed characterization. The project will conduct field surveys in areas representative of different parts of the glacier, including across the margins, near the grounding line, and along the central axis of the glacier into its catchment. The Rapid Air Movement (RAM) Drill will be used to create the shot holes required for the seismic measurements.

IDP successfully supported the following seven projects recently in the Arctic, Peru, and North America.

(1) The Climate Drivers and Ancient History in Greenland Ice project (PI Joseph McConnell; NSF award 1925417) used the Foro 400 Drill to collect two cores to 261 meters and 173 meters depth from the Tunu region of northeast Greenland. The cores will be analyzed for a broad range of elements, chemical species, and isotopes to reconstruct climate and human impacts during the past ~4000 years. The goal of the research is to develop accurately dated, high-resolution, ice-core records of a broad range of elements and chemical species to expand and extend recently identified causal linkages between (a) ancient societies; (b) volcanism and hydroclimate; and (c) wars, plagues, social unrest, and economic activity.

(2) The Collaborative Research: Arctic Observing Network for Observing Transformation of the Greenland Ice Sheet Firn Layer project (PIs Neil Humphrey and Joel Harper; NSF awards 2113391 and 2113392) used an IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder to drill and instrument four holes to 25 meters depth to observe transformation of the Greenland Ice sheet’s percolation zone firn layer. Using the IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder, repeat cores will be collected over five years to track density and ice content changes, and instrumentation installed in core holes will monitor firn temperature evolution and compaction of the firn layer. The data from these efforts will be of high value to scientists focused on changes in storage capacity of the firn layer, process details of meltwater infiltration in cold firn, and the influence of firn compaction and melt on satellite-observed ice sheet elevation.

(3) The NSFGEO-NERC: Collaborative Research: Chemistry and Biology under Low Flow Hydrologic Conditions Beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet Revealed through Naturally Emerging Subglacial Water project (PIs Kathy Licht and Trinity Hamilton; NSF awards 2039854 and 2039582) is studying the deposits of freeze-on ice (known as naledi) that form over winter at land-terminating outlets of the Greenland Ice Sheet. In this multi-year field campaign, the researchers are using the SIPRE Hand Auger to extract multiple intact short cores from sites in West Greenland with naledi at the ice margin. The cores will be analyzed in terms of the structure of the ice and sediment content, mineralogy of the sediment, stable isotopes, chemistry of salts and solutes, and microbiology. The goal is to use these cores to extract information about seasonal changes in the chemical and biological processes occurring under the Greenland Ice Sheet and thereby further elucidate the connections between glacial hydrology and subglacial biogeochemistry.

(4) The Collaborative Research: P2C2--Ultra-High-Resolution Investigation of High Andean Snow and Ice Chemistry to Improve Paleoclimatic Reconstruction and Enhance Climate Prediction project (PIs Paul Mayewski and Anton Seimon; NSF awards 1600018 and 1566450) is investigating past and modern change in climate over Peru and Bolivia using snow and ice samples to improve predictions for future climate. Instrumental records of climate and environmental variability from the region are sparse. However, ice cores from Central Andean glaciers can provide a source of high-resolution records of past climate dynamics and chemistry of the atmosphere extending back in time for centuries to millennia. Using the Electrothermal Drill, an IDP engineer and the researchers retrieved a 128-meter core to bedrock from the Quelccaya Ice Cap in Peru. The goal of the research is to combine advances in ice core sampling technology, knowledge of Andean storm event meteorology, cyberinfrastructure, and climate modeling and analysis to fresh snow, snow pits and ice core data from Peru and Bolivia to help assess the impact of natural and human-induced physical and chemical climate change at the storm-scales that impact day to day and season to season events.

(5) The Collaborative Research: P2C2--Ice Core and Firn Aquifer Studies at Combatant Col, British Columbia, Canada project (PIs Peter Neff and Eric Steig; NSF awards 2002441 and 2001961) used an IDDO Hand Auger to collect shallow cores from their field site at Combatant Col, British Columbia, Canada. The team also conducted radar work at the site and is scheduled to return to the field site during the 2023 field season, during which they will use the Electrothermal Drill to retrieve a core to bedrock. In combination with high-resolution radar imaging, the core from Combatant Col will be used to determine whether the observed firn-aquifer at this site (where liquid water is stored perennially above the firn-ice transition) has been a persistent feature at the site or whether it has formed recently, and to determine its impact on glacier energy balance and dynamics.

(6) The Reconstructing Ancient Human and Ecosystem Responses to Holocene Climate Conditions project (PIs Dave McWethy and Joseph McConnell; NSF award 1832486) is reconstructing Holocene climatic conditions to better understand human adaptation and response to past environmental variability. The researchers are using the assemblages of plant, animal, geologic, and archaeological material emerging from melting ice-patches in higher-elevation areas to learn about past environmental conditions and human use of alpine resources. The investigators are using an array of archaeological artifacts, ancient wood, and environmental and climatic proxies (e.g., oxygen isotopes, black carbon, continental dust, charcoal, and pollen) from ice cores collected from Northern Rocky Mountain ice-patches to better understand human use of alpine environments during periods of dramatic environmental change. The investigators used the Chipmunk Drill to collect the ice cores.

(7) The NSFGEO-NERC: Collaborative Research: Two-Phase Dynamics of Temperate Ice project (PIs Lucas Zoet and Neal Iverson; NSF awards 1643123 and 1643120) is investigating how ice infiltration into subglacial sediments affects glacier slip. The fastest-changing regions of the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets that contribute most to sea-level rise are underlain by soft sediments that facilitate glacier motion. Glacier ice can infiltrate several meters into these sediments, depending on the temperature and water pressure at the glacier’s base. To understand how ice infiltration into subglacial sediments affects glacier slip, the researchers are conducting laboratory experiments under relevant temperature and pressure conditions and comparing the results to state-of-the-art mathematical models. The researchers used the Chipmunk Drill to collect small-diameter ice cores from their sheared lab ice for further testing.

The U.S. Ice Drilling Program (IDP), in collaboration with its Science Advisory Board and with input from the research community, updated the Long Range Science Plan. The purpose of this plan is to articulate goals and make recommendations for the direction of U.S. ice coring and drilling science in a wide variety of areas of scientific inquiry and to make recommendations for the development of drilling technology, infrastructure, and logistical support needed to enable the science. A companion document, the Long Range Drilling Technology Plan, provides details about drills available through IDP. Both plans are revisited and revised as appropriate each spring. The Long Range Science Plan is available at https://icedrill.org/long-range-science-plan. The Long Range Drilling Technology Plan is available at https://icedrill.org/long-range-drilling-technology-plan.

If you envision the need for ice drilling for your project in the coming decade, please make sure that the high-level articulation of your science is captured in the Long Range Science Plan. If it isn’t, send several sentences to IceDrill@Dartmouth.edu describing the science driver and the envisioned field date and location for your project so that your plans are voiced in this planning document.

During the third quarter, IDP successfully prepared and packed two 20-foot containers full of ASIG Drill equipment, following diligent system modifications, upgrades, and system testing by IDP engineers and students. In June, the containers were shipped to Norfolk, VA, for further transport on the Pacer Goose military vessel to Thule, Greenland. The drilling equipment will be staged in Thule for inland transport in 2023 in support of the first season of the GreenDrill project. IDP will utilize the ASIG Drill and a Winkie Drill to collect subglacial rock core samples for the project.

A virtual meeting of the Ice Core Working Group (ICWG) was held on February 17 to discuss updates to the Long Range Science Plan and other ICWG business. The presentations made during the February meeting are available on the IDP website. Following the U.S. Ice Core Open Science Meeting, a short hybrid (in-person and online) meeting of the ICWG was also held on May 26 in La Jolla, CA.

The second quarter saw the start of the 2022 spring/summer field season. IDP is providing support to the following projects:

(1) The Climate Drivers and Ancient History in Greenland Ice project (PI Joseph McConnell; NSF award number 1925417) will drill a 400-450 meter long ice core using the Foro 400 Drill from the Tunu region of northeast Greenland. The researchers will analyze the core for a broad range of elements, chemical species, and isotopes to reconstruct climate and human impacts during the past ~4000 years. The goal of this research is to develop accurately dated, high-resolution, ice-core records of a broad range of elements and chemical species to expand and extend recently identified causal linkages between (i) ancient societies; (ii) volcanism and hydroclimate; and (iii) wars, plagues, social unrest, and economic activity.

(2) The Arctic Observing Network for Observing Transformation of the Greenland Ice Sheet Firn Layer project (PIs Joel Harper and Neil Humphrey; NSF award number 2113391 and 2113392) will establish a network of instrumented sites along a transect of the Greenland ice sheet to measure the state and evolution of firn properties. Using the IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder, repeat cores will be collected over five years to track density and ice content changes, and instrumentation installed in core holes will monitor firn temperature evolution and compaction of the firn layer. The data from these efforts will be of high value to scientists focused on changes in storage capacity of the firn layer, process details of meltwater infiltration in cold firn, and the influence of firn compaction and melt on satellite-observed ice sheet elevation.

(3) The Chemistry and Biology under Low Flow Hydrologic Conditions Beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet Revealed through Naturally Emerging Subglacial Water project (PIs Kathy Licht and Trinity Hamilton; NSF award number 2039854 and 2039582) seeks to understand the effect of large glaciers on weathering processes beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet and the consequences for life. Nutrients and other products are flushed out of the Greenland Ice Sheet with water from melting ice during summer. While these products have been sampled in spring and summer, it is not known how weathering processes are different during winter. Researchers will use the SIPRE Hand Auger to sample the seasonal ice that forms in front of two of Greenland’s glacial outlets, Isunnguata Sermia and Leverett Glacier, during the freezing months to assess the chemistry and microbiology processes that reflect wintertime conditions beneath the ice sheet – periods when the input of fresh meltwater is minimal.

(4) The Ice Core and Firn Aquifer Studies at Combatant Col, British Columbia, Canada project (PIs Peter Neff and Eric Steig; NSF award number 2002441 and 2001961) aims to recover an ice core at Combatant Col, British Columbia, Canada, to reconstruct hydroclimate variability over the last 500 years. Previous work at Combatant Col demonstrates the preservation of annual stratigraphy, water-isotope, and geochemical records reflecting important climate and environmental variables, including atmospheric circulation, snow accumulation, fire activity, and trans-Pacific dust transport. During the 2022 field season, radar work and shallowing coring using the IDDO Hand Auger will be conducted. During the 2023 field season, a core to bedrock will be retrieved using the Electrothermal Drill. Analysis of the ice core will include water isotope ratios and visual stratigraphy. In combination with high-resolution radar imaging, the core from Combatant Col will be used to determine whether the observed firn-aquifer at this site has been a persistent feature at the site or whether it has formed recently, and to determine its impact on glacier energy balance and dynamics.

(5) The Reconstructing Ancient Human and Ecosystem Responses to Holocene Climate Conditions project (PIs Dave McWethy and Joe McConnell; NSF award number 1832486) will reconstruct Holocene climatic conditions to better understand human adaptation and response to past environmental variability. The assemblages of plant, animal, geologic, and archaeological material emerging from melting ice-patches in higher-elevation areas can provide a wealth of information about past environmental conditions and human use of alpine resources. The investigators will use an array of archaeological artifacts, ancient wood, and environmental and climatic proxies (e.g., oxygen isotopes, black carbon, continental dust, charcoal, and pollen) from ice cores collected from Rocky Mountain ice-patches to better understand human use of alpine environments during periods of dramatic environmental change. The investigators will use the Chipmunk Drill to collect the ice cores.

(6) The Investigation of High Andean Snow and Ice Chemistry to Improve Paleoclimatic Reconstruction and Enhance Climate Prediction project (PIs Paul Mayewski and Lester Perry; NSF award number 1600018 and 1566450) aims to examine past and modern changes in climate over Peru and Bolivia using snow and ice samples to improve predictions for future climate. This research aims to combine advances in ice core sampling technology, knowledge of Andean storm event meteorology, cyberinfrastructure, and climate modeling and analysis of fresh snow, snowpits, and ice core data from Peru and Bolivia. Using the Thermal Drill, this project will recover approximately 140 meters of snow/firn/ice core from the summit region of Quelccaya.

On January 3, 2022, IDP welcomed Electrical Engineer Umberto Stefanini to the team. The hiring of Stefanini fills a critical need and closes a vacancy that has been open for some time. On January 14, 2022, Field Support Manager Anna Zajicek departed IDP to take a new position with Polar Field Services. Field Support duties have temporarily transitioned to Krissy Slawny until the Field Support Manager vacancy is filled. Grant Boeckmann announced he will be departing IDP in March 2022 to take a position with the Centre for Ice and Climate in Copenhagen, Denmark. IDP is interested in hiring two mechanical engineers to join the IDP team. Position Vacancy Listings for the one Field Support Manager and two Mechanical Engineer positions recently closed, and IDP is in the process of reviewing the applicants. IDP hopes for quick replacements of these key staff members to minimize any upcoming schedule disruption.

The U.S. Ice Drilling Program is made up of a team of people located at Dartmouth College, the University of New Hampshire, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). The team at the UW-Madison consists of engineers and support staff tasked with designing, building, and operating polar ice and rock coring equipment. The team at UW-Madison is small and typically doesn’t have regular vacancies but does occasionally need engineers and/or part-time equipment operators. The UW-Madison team also occasionally hires undergraduate Student Hourly employees and Research Interns (post-undergraduate graduation) to work in Madison, WI, with its engineering team. Feel free to send us your resume, and we will add you to our list of interested participants. We can be reached at IceDrill@Dartmouth.edu. When we have position vacancies, they will be posted on the IDP website at https://icedrill.org/jobs.

In intermediate and deep drilling projects, drilling fluids are essential to keep the borehole open after removing the ice-core section. The common practice is to isolate the permeable firn zone with a borehole casing to reduce drilling fluid consumption and environmental contamination. Many smaller casing sections are joined together to case the entire borehole to the firn-ice transition. Historically, the sections of borehole casing are threaded together. These threaded connections, however, can sometimes leak.

In contrast, a welded connection is more likely to ensure tightness with time and maximize the odds for the casing to be leak-tight. To this end, IDP acquired an HDPE pipe fusion welding system for welding casing pipe joints. IDP fabricated a stand to allow for the operation of the fusion welder in a vertical configuration and tested the fusion welder system in a freezer at the UW Physical Sciences Lab. The fusion welder was tested at -20°C and -40°C, and various parameters of heating time and time for joining the pipes after heating was tested. The fusion welder performed well in a vertical configuration, and the process worked well at -20°C and -40°C. IDP anticipates using the fusion welder on the borehole casing for the Hercules Dome ice core project.

With the IDP engineers at home for a second Antarctic season due to COVID-19 project postponements, the team took the opportunity to perform a full system shakedown of the Thermal Drill System on Lake Waubesa in Madison, WI, in mid-January. IDP Mechanical Engineer Grant Boeckmann was slated to deploy with the drill for an upcoming project on Quelccaya Ice Cap in Peru. As Boeckmann will be departing IDP in March to join the Centre for Ice and Climate in Denmark, the shakedown opportunity gave Mechanical Engineer Elliot Moravec the chance to pack the system, perform a full setup, including the tent, and drill a couple of ice cores into the foot-deep lake ice. The training proved very valuable and should set the Peru project up for great success.

The Foro 3000 Drill is the deep ice coring drill that will be used for ice coring at Hercules Dome, Antarctica. The IDP Science Advisory Board has identified the development of replicate coring capability for the Foro 3000 drill as a high priority in the IDP Long Range Science Plan 2020-2030; the first step in the process is the establishment of the IDP Science Requirements for Replicate Coring. When the Foro 3000 drill development was under consideration, a comparison of DISC versus Foro 3000 capability and logistics (Johnson and Kippenhan, 2017) indicated that a passive design for replicate coring would be advisable. A preliminary analysis (Zeug, 2017) found that a reliable approach using a whipstock in the parent borehole is feasible for retrieving replicate cores at specified depths from the parent borehole. There may be other approaches as well, but they must also fit within the overall goal of avoiding the electronic and mechanical complexity that would accompany a steerable drilling system, which is a more costly endeavor than is feasible now. From discussions organized by IDP with iterative discussions between representatives of the ice core science and borehole logging science communities and IDP staff, science requirements for Replicate Coring Capability for the Foro 3000 Drill have been established.

The U.S. Ice Drilling Program is planning use of its drills for the coming decade. If you intend to submit a proposal to the NSF that would require use of the DISC Drill, please send an email expressing your intent to Icedrill@Dartmouth.edu by October 1.

Deep drilling at Hercules Dome will be conducted using the Foro 3000 Drill. A comparison of Foro 3000 Drill and DISC Drill capabilities and associated logistics requirements is available online and summarized in the table below.

Thank you for contributing to future planning for the U.S. Ice Drilling Program!

On June 11, 2021, the U.S. Ice Drilling Program and the Summit Science Coordination Office co-sponsored a U.S. science community planning workshop to identify and articulate U.S. science community interests for long-term planning of potential scientific traverses on the Greenland Ice Sheet. The interdisciplinary science community workshop identified future sites and traverse routes on the Greenland Ice Sheet where ground-based measurements and/or ice coring will be needed and the associated timeline over the coming decade for advancing science on multiple frontiers. The presentations from the workshop are available on the workshop’s website. in addition, workshop participants are currently working on a set of white papers that will also be available on the workshop’s website.

The U.S. Ice Drilling Program (IDP), in collaboration with its Science Advisory Board and with input from the research community, updated the Long Range Science Plan. The purpose of this plan is to articulate goals and make recommendations for the direction for U.S. ice coring and drilling science in a wide variety of areas of scientific inquiry and to make recommendations for the development of drilling technology, infrastructure, and logistical support needed to enable the science. A companion document, the Long Range Drilling Technology Plan, provides details about drills available through IDP. Both plans are revisited and revised as appropriate each spring. The Long Range Science Plan is available at https://icedrill.org/long-range-science-plan. The Long Range Drilling Technology Plan is available at https://icedrill.org/long-range-drilling-technology-plan.

If you envision the need for ice drilling for your project in the coming decade, please make sure that the high-level articulation of your science is captured in the Long Range Science Plan. If it isn’t, send several sentences to IceDrill@Dartmouth.edu describing the science driver and the envisioned field date and location for your project, so that your plans are voiced in this planning document.

June 11, 2021 via Zoom

Sponsors: U.S. Ice Drilling Program & Summit Science Coordination Office
Conveners: Joerg Schaefer, Mary Albert, Jason Briner, Zoe Courville
Website: https://icedrill.org/meetings/us-scientific-traverses-gris-planning-workshop

The U.S. Ice Drilling Program and the Summit Science Coordination Office are co-sponsoring a U.S. science community planning workshop to identify and articulate U.S. science community interests for long-term planning of potential scientific traverses on the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Purpose: The workshop is designed to identify the driving scientific questions that require access to interior areas of the Greenland Ice Sheet and would benefit from traverse approaches for the coming decade and beyond. What are the primary science questions that the U.S. scientific community would seek to answer? The outcome from the workshop is a set of white papers that will help identify technological and logistical requirements that will be needed to support the science.

Description: Scientific discoveries achieved on the Greenland Ice are critical to society today, but they are not achieved without significant advance planning. This interdisciplinary science community workshop will identify future sites and traverse routes on the Greenland Ice Sheet where ground-based measurements and/or ice coring will be needed and the associated timeline over the coming decade for advancing science on multiple frontiers. The outcome of the workshop will be a set of white papers describing compelling scientific issues and associated measurements, timelines, and geographic locations on the Greenland Ice Sheet. The white papers will be made available to all on both the Icedrill.org and Geosummit.org websites.

Additional workshop information and the draft agenda are available at https://icedrill.org/meetings/us-scientific-traverses-gris-planning-workshop. To participate in the workshop, please register by following the instructions on our website, where you will be able to provide a title for your 5-minute “pitch” for the science that you envision for the future. After we receive your registration, we will send you additional details of the workshop as it develops. The deadline for registration is June 6, 2021.

Each year in the spring, the Ice Drilling Program (IDP) works with its Science Advisory Board (SAB) and the research community to update the Long Range Science Plan. This Plan identifies the science in the coming decade that will require the use of ice drilling technology and expertise for the community. This also drives the formation of other plans, for example, the Long Range Drilling Technology Plan. The plans provide the basis for multi‐annual planning for the actions and drill development projects of IDP and others, and the plans give the funding agencies advance notice of upcoming community science needs.

If you need an ice core or a hole drilled in a glacier or ice sheet in the coming decade or a rock core from under shallow glacial ice, please make sure that the high‐level articulation of your science is captured in the current draft update of the Long Range Science Plan!

Please read through the draft Long Range Science Plan and send corrections, updates, or additions to IceDrill@Dartmouth.edu ASAP or not later than June 12, 2021. When sending corrections/updates, please also reference the appropriate line number in the draft Long Range Science Plan where the correction/update is needed.

Submission deadline: June 12, 2021

To download the working draft, visit: https://icedrill.org/long-range-science-plan

The annual Ice Core Working Group (ICWG) meeting was held virtually on March 8 via Zoom. Discussions included updates from NSF and IDP, project updates from Canada, Greenland, and Antarctica, the current status and future plans for the NSF-Ice Core Facility, data archiving, updates to the Long Range Science Plan (LRSP), and ice drilling technology development for the LRSP. The presentations made during the meeting are available on the IDP website at https://icedrill.org/library/presentations-2021-ice-core-working-group-meeting.

The first community workshop and science planning meeting for the Hercules Dome ice core project will take place on May 10-11, 2021, using a virtual platform. This is both a planning meeting and an open science meeting, which will provide an opportunity to hear about some of the latest Antarctic ice core research, and to begin to develop new collaborations.

The Hercules Dome project is a major investment by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), and represents a community platform for research, rather like an oceanographic cruise or a spacecraft mission. Hercules Dome follows in the long tradition of deep ice core projects supported by the NSF, including the GISP2 project in Greenland, the WAIS Divide project in West Antarctica, and the recently-completed South Pole (SPICEcore) project, all of which have led to substantial scientific advances.

Drilling at Hercules Dome is not expected to begin until 2024, at the earliest. This means that there is time to develop novel ideas, and to find ways to get involved in the project, whether through measurements on the ice core, modeling related to the ice and climate dynamics, meteorological observations in the field, innovative community engagement and education work, or other ideas.

In preparation for the meeting, the Hercules Dome lead team will be hosting two informational webinars on March 23 at 1:00 p.m and March 31 at 9:00 a.m. (both Pacific time) that will include Q&A sessions. The goal of these webinars is to provide more background on the project and answer questions that will enable interested participants to contribute more fully to the meeting in May. The webinars will have the same content, but will provide two different opportunities for participation. To register for one of the webinars, use one of the following links:

• Register for March 23 webinar (1:00 p.m. Pacific)
• Register for March 31 webinar (9:00 a.m. Pacific)

On April 15, there will be a special webinar lecture given by Eric Wolff of Cambridge University, “New frontiers in Antarctic ice core research”.

The May meeting will include a small number of invited speakers and substantial opportunities for participants to present their ideas and to network with others involved in Antarctic glaciological research, including, but not limited to, ice core science. Those working on the communication of polar science are also strongly encouraged to attend. Registration for the April 15 lecture and the May meeting will be on the Hercules Dome website soon.

If you are interested in these events, mark your calendars and sign up for the Hercules Dome listserv (https://herculesdome.org/get-involved) to stay informed.

All IDP-supported fieldwork for the 2020-2021 Antarctic season was postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic. IDP continues to work with the NSF and ASC to re-plan fieldwork for the 2021-2022 Antarctic season.

A rare silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic found the IDP engineers at home over winter for the first time in nearly a decade for some. This provided an opportunity to share the holidays with loved ones after careful quarantine periods. While IDP usually operates under tight timelines of receiving cargo back from Antarctica in May, quickly turning it around for Greenland or Alaska, and then making yet another round of quick repairs and inspections prior to Antarctic shipments in September, 2020 has provided IDP time to focus on long-standing, beneficial maintenance and minor upgrades to equipment to improve its reliability, ease of operation and longevity.

The U.S. Ice Drilling Program (IDP), in collaboration with its Science Advisory Board and with input from the research community, updated the Long Range Science Plan. The purpose of this plan is to articulate goals and make recommendations for the direction for U.S. ice coring and drilling science in a wide variety of areas of scientific inquiry and to make recommendations for the development of drilling technology, infrastructure, and logistical support needed to enable the science. A companion document, the Long Range Drilling Technology Plan, provides details about drills available through IDP. Both plans are revisited and revised as appropriate each spring. The Long Range Science Plan is available at https://icedrill.org/long-range-science-plan. The Long Range Drilling Technology Plan is available at https://icedrill.org/long-range-drilling-technology-plan.

If you envision the need for ice drilling for your project in the coming decade, please make sure that the high-level articulation of your science is captured in the Long Range Science Plan. If it isn’t, send several sentences to IceDrill@Dartmouth.edu describing the science driver and the envisioned field date and location for your project, so that your plans are voiced in this planning document.

If you are preparing a National Science Foundation (NSF) proposal that includes any kind of support from IDP, you must include a Letter of Support from IDP in the proposal.

Researchers are asked to provide IDP with a detailed support request three weeks prior to the date the Letter of Support is required. Early submissions are strongly encouraged.

Although there are no proposal deadlines for the Antarctic Research and Arctic Research solicitations, NSF advises researchers to submit proposals 18 months in advance of their potential deployment date.

For further information on requesting IDP support, visit our website at
https://icedrill.org/requesting-field-support or contact us at IceDrill@Dartmouth.edu .

The 2019/20 Antarctic field season was a bustling time for IDP. The entire engineering staff of IDP deployed across five different sites. Using the Winkie Drill and Badger-Eclipse Drill, Engineer Grant Boeckmann and Research Intern Elliot Moravec successfully collected four subglacial rock cores on Thwaites Glacier in the Hudson Mountains for PI Brent Goehring’s project. Engineer Tanner Kuhl and Driller Elizabeth Morton supported PI John Higgins’s work at Allan Hills through operation of the Blue Ice Drill and the new Foro 400 Drill. IDP Warehouse Manager Jim Koehler operated the Intermediate Depth Logging Winch (IDLW) at South Pole Station in support of PI Kael Hanson’s logging of the SPICEcore borehole and then transitioned to WAIS Divide to assist Engineer Chris Gibson with testing of the new RAM 2 Drill components with the original RAM Drill compressors. They were also able to perform brief testing on the Small Hot Water Drill, which will serve as the backup drill for PI Sridhar Anandakrishnan’s GHOST project on Thwaites Glacier in 2020/21. Engineer Jay Johnson deployed to Minna Bluff with the RAID project at the request of PI John Goodge and the NSF. In addition to consulting on operation of the RAID equipment, Johnson also used an IDP 4-Inch Drill and chips bailer to assist in setting the RAID packer. He also re-terminated the IDLW cable following damage at South Pole and was assisted in this effort by Kuhl and Morton. The IDLW was then operated in two RAID boreholes by RAID and IceCube personnel. Despite substantial weather and aircraft delays program-wide, objectives were largely completed for all projects, and feedback received from PIs has been very positive.

IDP is providing support to the following Northern Hemisphere projects during the 2019-2020 winter/spring field season:

(1) The SG: The Ecosystem Ecology of Lake Ice Loss in North-Temperate Lakes project (PI Dugan; NSF award 1856224) advances the growing field of winter limnology by using long-term data collected on northern lakes in Wisconsin in conjunction with a snow-removal experiment to look at under-ice algae and the implications for ice-loss on spring algae blooms. Using an IDDO hand auger, the researchers will collect lake ice cores through an ice thickness of up to one meter to study the biogeochemistry and habitat of lake ice.

(2) The Collaborative Research: Sediment Transport Mechanisms and Geomorphic Processes Associated with Shore Ice along Cold Climate Coastlines project (PIs Zoet and Theuerkauf; NSF award 1916179 and 1950101) will test the hypothesis that limited or variable shore ice cover, when compared to consistent shore ice cover, results in enhanced storm-induced coastal erosion and damage to coastal infrastructure. Cold climate coastlines are highly vulnerable to reduced winter ice cover in response to climate change. The dynamics of how reduced ice cover influences coastal evolution is poorly understood which inhibits accurate forecasting of future coastal response in cold climates. Researchers on this project hope to improve our understanding of how sediment interacts with shore ice as well as the resulting coastal landscape change. The first part of the project involves laboratory experiments aimed at studying the physics of sediment and ice interactions. The second part of the project will gather field measurements that use the laboratory measurements as a basis to investigate how cold climate coastlines naturally respond to the shore ice. Using a SIPRE Hand Auger, the researchers will collect ice core samples of 1-3 meters in length on Lake Michigan and Lake Superior to inspect debris entrained within the ice for comparison with the laboratory experiments. This research will result in a model that will help explain how reduced and variable winter shore ice cover alters the coastal landscape, which will help coastal managers proactively plan for future climate change impacts.

IDP is providing support to the following projects during the 2019-2020 Antarctic field season:

(1) The Geological History Constraints on the Magnitude of Grounding Line Retreat in the Thwaites Glacier System project (PIs Goehring, Balco, Hall, Campbell; C-443-M; NSF award 1738989) contributes to the joint initiative launched by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to substantially improve decadal and longer-term projections of ice loss and sea-level rise originating from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. The goal of the project is to obtain geological evidence from the Thwaites-Pine Island Glacier system that will show whether glaciers were less extensive than they are at present, and, if so, when. The project will utilize the Badger-Eclipse Drill and Winkie Drill to obtain subglacial bedrock from sites where ice thickness is dynamically linked to grounding-line position in the Thwaites system (specifically in the Hudson Mountains). Observation of significant cosmogenic-nuclide concentrations in these samples would provide direct, unambiguous evidence for past episodes of thinning linked to grounding-line retreat as well as constraints on their timing and duration.

(2) The Thwaites-Amundsen Regional Survey and Network (TARSAN) integrating atmosphere-ice-ocean processes affecting the sub-ice- shelf environment project (PI Pettit; C-445-M/N; NSF award 1738992) contributes to the joint initiative launched by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to substantially improve decadal and longer-term projections of ice loss and sea-level rise originating from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. Thwaites and neighboring glaciers in the Amundsen Sea Embayment are rapidly losing mass in response to recent climate warming and related changes in ocean circulation. The processes driving the loss appear to be warmer ocean circulation and changes in the width and flow speed of the glacier, but a better understanding of these changes is needed to refine predictions of how the glacier will evolve. One highly sensitive process is the transitional flow of glacier ice from land onto the ocean to become a floating ice shelf. This flow of ice from grounded to floating is affected by changes in air temperature and snowfall at the surface; the speed and thickness of ice feeding it from upstream; and the ocean temperature, salinity, bathymetry, and currents that the ice flows into. The project team will gather new measurements of each of these local environmental conditions so that it can better predict how future changes in air, ocean, or the ice will affect the loss of ice to the ocean in this region. The project will use a 400-meter winch with tower and sheave from the 4-Inch Drill as an instrument installation winch to lower instruments into hot water-drilled boreholes on the Dotson Ice Shelf to measure ocean water properties at locations where warm Circumpolar Deep Water reaches the Thwaites grounding line.

(3) The Collaborative Research: Snapshots of Early and mid-Pleistocene Climate and Atmospheric Composition from the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area project (PIs Higgins, Brook, Severinghaus, Mayewski; I-165-M; NSF award 1744993, 1745006, 1744832 and 1745007) will collect new ice cores from the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area. Bubbles of ancient air trapped in ice cores have been used to directly reconstruct atmospheric composition, and its links to Antarctic and global climate, over the last 800,000 years. Previous field expeditions to the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area, Antarctica, have recovered ice cores that extend as far back as 2.7 million years. These ice cores extend direct observations of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane concentrations and indirect records of Antarctic climate into a period of Earth’s climate history that represents a plausible geologic analogue to future anthropogenic climate change. Through this project, the team will return to the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area to recover additional ice cores that date to 2 million years or older. The new Foro 400 Drill and Blue Ice Drill will be used to recover the ice cores. The climate records developed from these ice cores will provide new insights into the chemical composition of the atmosphere and Antarctic climate during times of comparable or even greater warmth than the present day.

(4) The Phase 2 Development of a Rapid Access Ice Drilling (RAID) Platform for Research in Antarctica project (PI Goodge; D-551-M, D-552-M; NSF award 1419935) will initiate its third Antarctic Field Trial (AFT3) of the RAID drill system  – to collect ice and rock samples from a deep ice sheet near Minna Bluff. The RAID drilling system will be put through a complete set of drilling trials, including augering firn, setting a borehole packer, drilling about 600 meters of grounded ice, and obtain samples of ice and rock cores at depth (by wireline rotary coring). All components of the drilling system will be tested and evaluated. The 4-Inch Drill will be used to make 2-3 meters of smooth-walled borehole just below the firn-ice transition, at a depth of approximately 70 meters, to field test the setting of the borehole packer. The Intermediate Depth Logging Winch will be used to field test a borehole dust logger in selected boreholes produced this season at Minna Bluff.

(5) The Management and Operations of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory 2016-2021 project (PIs Halzen and Hanson; A-333-S; NSF award 1600823) will utilize the Intermediate Depth Logging Winch to lower a series of optical+UV and radio sensor packages into the South Pole Ice Core (SPICEcore) borehole to the full depth of the hole (1751 m). The science goals include measurements of the radio absorption length of the ice from 100-1000MHz, radio birefringence in the ice, and ice index of refraction, all measured as a function of depth and ice temperature. The science team is interested in the optical scattering, absorption lengths, and luminescence as a function of depth and optical wavelength from the visible into the ultraviolet.

IDP successfully supported five projects during the 2019 Arctic field season.

(1) The Collaborative Research: Quantifying Heat/Mass Structure and Fluxes Through the Full Thickness of Greenland’s Percolation Zone project (PIs Harper and Humphrey; NSF awards 1717241 and 1717939) collected shallow firn cores in western Greenland using an IDDO hand auger and Sidewinder kit. The shallow cores were used to quantify firn density and provided access for temperature logging of the shallow firn thickness. The goal of the multiyear project is to use a combination of shallow and deep cores/boreholes to quantify the structure, thermal state, and heat fluxes through the full thickness of the firn column across a transect spanning western Greenland’s percolation zone. The researchers are using their own hot water drill to drill the deep (up to 100 meters) boreholes.

(2) The Collaborative Research: Refreezing in the Firn of the Greenland Ice Sheet: Spatiotemporal Variability and Implications for Ice Sheet Mass Balance project (PIs Rennermalm, Tedesco, and Hock; NSF awards 1604058, 1603331, 1603815) used an IDDO hand auger and Sidewinder kit for a third season in Greenland. During the multiyear project, the researchers collected several shallow firn cores from the southwestern sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet to investigate the stratigraphy, density, temperature, and liquid water content of the firn cover and its spatial and temporal variations.

(3) The Partnerships for Polar Science Education and Outreach in Greenland (JSEP) and Antarctica (JASE) project (PI Virginia; NSF award 1748137) encompasses two NSF-sponsored polar-focused programs – the Joint Science Education Project (JSEP) and the Joint Antarctic School Expedition (JASE) – that provide significant opportunities for training the next generation of STEM professionals and for polar-science outreach. JSEP, a project of the Joint Committee, was initiated in 2007 to educate students and teachers from Greenland, Denmark, and the U.S. The program brings US students together with Danish and Greenlandic students in Greenland where the group spends three weeks studying the causes and consequences of Arctic environmental change. As part of the JSEP program, an IDDO hand auger was used to expose the students to firn science (observing stratigraphic, density, and temperature changes with depth) at EastGRIP. JASE, a project in collaboration with the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH), takes U.S. students to Antarctica to work alongside Chilean students and examine Antarctica’s rapidly changing ecosystems.

(4) The EAGER: Exploration of the Denali Basal Ice Core Archive project (PI Kreutz; NSF award 1806422) returned to their 2013 ice core drill site and used the Stampfli Drill to collect a 50-meter long core from the summit plateau of Mount Hunter, Alaska. The researchers used a solar power system to power the Stampfli Drill during collection of the first ~45 meters of core when the sun was shining; the last 5 meters were collected during cloudy conditions, which required use of a generator to power the drill. The objective of the research is to understand the recent and past changes in summer temperature, snow accumulation, atmospheric circulation, and pollution in the context of the last 2000 years of natural variability in the North Pacific. In 2013 the researchers collected twin 208-meter long ice cores to bedrock from the same location (see Ice Bits 2013 Summer). This season’s 50-meter long core will be used to update the climate record from 2013 to 2019 and help aid in the interpretation of the deeper ice.

(5) The Electrothermal Drill Testing with the Juneau Icefield Research Program project (Ice Drilling Program) successfully field tested new modifications to the Thermal Drill. In late July and early August 2019, IDP Mechanical Engineer Grant Boeckmann, IDP Field Support Manager Anna de Vitry, and IDP contractor and Warehouse Manager Jim Koehler traveled to Juneau, AK, for a beneficial testing opportunity with the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP). Utilizing the well-established logistics of the JIRP program, the IDP team was able to test new Thermal Drill modifications including a new 300-meter drill cable, a prototype ethanol delivery mechanism, and new heat rings. The IDP team successfully reached 294 meters and was able to refine operating procedures for the equipment.

The U.S. Ice Drilling Program in collaboration with its Science Advisory Board and with input from the research community updated the Long Range Science Plan. The purpose of this plan is to articulate goals and make recommendations for the direction for U.S. ice coring and drilling science in a wide variety of areas of scientific inquiry and to make recommendations for the development of drilling technology, infrastructure, and logistical support needed to enable the science. A companion document, the Long Range Drilling Technology Plan, provides details about drills available through IDP. Both plans are revisited and revised as appropriate each spring. The Long Range Science Plan is available at https://icedrill.org/long-range-science-plan.

If you envision the need for ice drilling for your project in the coming decade, please make sure that the high-level articulation of your science is captured in the Long Range Science Plan. If it isn’t, send several sentences to IceDrill@Dartmouth.edu describing the science driver and the envisioned field date and location for your project, so that your plans are voiced in this planning document.

In early April, IDP-WI coordinated with staff at Port Hueneme to return cargo from Antarctica. Returned equipment included the Hand Augers used during the 2018-2019 season, the Intermediate Deep Logging Winch and the Sediment Laden Lake Ice Drill. In addition, several crates of DISC Drill equipment and the MECC (Mobile Expandable Container Configuration) machine shop returned after over a decade on the ice. The DISC Drill equipment and MECC were slowly removed from WAIS Divide on flights of opportunity.

The second quarter saw the start of the 2019 Arctic field season. IDP is providing support to the following projects:

(1) The Quantifying Heat/Mass Structure and Fluxes through the Full Thickness of Greenland's Percolation Zone project (PI Harper; NSF award #1717241) will collect several shallow firn cores in western Greenland using a hand auger and Sidewinder kit. The cores will be used to quantify firn density, and the resultant boreholes will provide access for temperature logging of the firn column. The goal of the multiyear project is to use a combination of shallow and deep cores/boreholes to quantify the structure, thermal state, and heat fluxes through the full thickness of the firn column across a transect spanning western Greenland's percolation zone. The researchers are using their own hot water drill to drill the deep boreholes.

(2) The Refreezing in the Firn of the Greenland Ice Sheet 2019 project (PI Rennermalm; NSF award #1604058) will use a hand auger and Sidewinder kit to collect several shallow firn cores from the southwestern sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet to investigate the stratigraphy, density, temperature, and liquid water content of the firn cover. The project's goal is to better understand how the surface meltwater generated in the summer makes its way from its location on the ice sheet to the ocean. Two competing but not mutually exclusive theories are 1) the meltwater percolates into the ice sheet pores and is stored for a relatively long time. 2) The initial infiltrating meltwater refreezes at shallow depth in the firn, forming a hard pan that prohibits further infiltration. The project will test these two hypotheses through a combination of fieldwork, remote sensing from satellites, and modeling.

(3) The Partnerships for Polar Science Education and Outreach in Greenland (JSEP) project (PI Virginia; NSF award #1748137) is a multicultural polar science outreach program for high school students from Greenland, Denmark, and the USA. The program brings US students together with Danish and Greenlandic students in Greenland, where the group will spend several weeks studying the causes and consequences of Arctic environmental change. As part of the program, a hand auger will be used to expose the students to firn science (observing stratigraphic, density, and temperature changes with depth) at EastGRIP.

(4) The EAGER: Exploration of the Denali Basal Ice Core Archive project (PI Kreutz; NSF award #1806422) will return to their 2013 ice core drill site and use the Stampfli Drill to collect a 30- to 50-meter long core. The researcher's objective is to understand the recent and past changes in summer temperature, snow accumulation, atmospheric circulation, and pollution in the context of the last 2000 years of natural variability in the North Pacific. In 2013 the researchers collected twin 208-meter long ice cores to bedrock from the summit plateau of Mt. Hunter in Denali National Park. This season's 30- to 50-meter long core will be used to update the climate record from 2013 to 2019 and help aid in the interpretation of the deeper ice.

(5) The Thermal Drill Testing with the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP) project is an internal IDP project. The Electrothermal drill, aka the "Thermal drill", is a mechanical ice coring drill based on the agile 4-Inch drill but with the addition of an electrically heated ring that enables coring in temperate ice that is close to the pressure melting point. Following planned system upgrades in PY 2018, including a new 300-meter long cable, new heat rings and an ethanol delivery mechanism, IDP is conducting a three-week test of the Electrothermal Drill system in Alaska in conjunction with other JIRP activities and established logistics. Following the test, IDP will inspect and repair the Electrothermal Drill equipment and make any necessary modifications.

If you receive any support from IDP, we kindly request that you acknowledge IDP in any resultant publications or articles with the following statement: "We thank the U.S. Ice Drilling Program for support activities through NSF Cooperative Agreement 1836328." If you have any questions, please contact us at icedrill@dartmouth.edu.

In early January, IDP engineer Jay Johnson deployed to McMurdo Station to lead planned Rapid Access Ice Drill (RAID) maintenance efforts. The team of five set-up the drill rig and completed the modifications and test objectives requested by PIs John Goodge and Jeff Severinghaus. Primary accomplishments include:

• Repair and testing of the hydraulic system
• Testing of the Fluid Recirculation System
• Documentation of operation and winterization procedures
• Installation and testing of new components
• Deployment of a new conductor casing

In addition, the team developed procedural efficiencies to reduce rig set-up and take-down time. Pack-up and module/parts organization will be completed early in the second quarter.

IDP deployed engineers Tanner Kuhl and Grant Boeckmann for the jointly-supported NSF and Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) Law Dome Project. IDP worked for several years with PI Vas Petrenko and the AAD to plan for an ambitious amount of ice coring using three IDP drill systems: a Badger-Eclipse Drill, a 4-Inch Drill, and the Blue Ice Drill. Despite challenging weather conditions, over 1,000 meters of ice core was drilled across six boreholes, surpassing the original science objectives. This project also represented the first deployment of the newly-acquired Blue Ice Drill tent. Project participants report that the tent performed well, even during high winds, allowing for continued operations during inclement weather.

IDP is providing support to the following projects during the 2018-2019 Antarctic field season:

(1) The Reconstructing Carbon-14 of Atmospheric Carbon Monoxide from Law Dome, Antarctica, to Constrain Long-Term Hydroxyl Radical Variability project (PI Petrenko; I-160-M) will sample firn air and shallow ice to a depth of about 233 meters at the Law Dome high-accumulation coastal site in East Antarctica. The goal of the project is to obtain measurements of paleo-atmospheric carbon-14 of carbon monoxide back to the 1800s when reactive trace gas emissions from human activity were minimal. These measurements will help to constrain changes in the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere during the industrial period. The Badger-Eclipse Drill will be used to create the borehole for the firn air sampling. The 4-Inch Drill and Blue Ice Drill - Deep will be used to collect the ice core samples.

(2) The Antarctic Firn Aquifers: Extent, Characteristics, and Comparison with Greenland Occurrences project (PI Scambos; I-344-E) will investigate areas in the Antarctic Peninsula where water from summer melting of snow drains down into the deeper snow (firn) and remains as a water-flooded snow layer throughout the Antarctic winter. These zones are called firn aquifers. The project aims to confirm indications from satellite data that these areas exist on the Wilkins Ice Shelf and the George VI Ice Shelf coast. Persistent water in the upper layers of an ice shelf can destabilize the ice shelf and cause it to fracture and disintegrate or, on a non-floating ice sheet, can cause it to flow faster by draining to the bottom of the ice and reducing the friction between bedrock and glacier. Using the IDDO Hand Auger, the fieldwork is centered on shallow ice-core drilling to ~60 meters depth at the southern Wilkins Ice Shelf and the southern George VI Ice Shelf. In addition to drilling one or two cores at each of the sites, researchers will conduct ground-penetrating-radar surveys of the area around the cores to determine the varying depth and extent of the aquifers. They will also install AMIGOS (Automated Meteorology-Ice-Geophysics Observing System) stations at each site with a sensor array that will measure weather, snow temperature and accumulation, and melt-season duration and intensity. As part of the ice coring, the researchers will also measure snow density and temperature in recovered ice.

(3) The Radio and Optical Measurements of Glacial Ice Properties Using the SPICEcore Borehole project (PIs Halzen and Hanson; A-333-S) will utilize the Intermediate Depth Logging Winch to lower a series of optical+UV and radio sensor packages into the South Pole Ice Core (SPICEcore) borehole to the full depth of the hole (1751 meters). The science goals of this IceCube project include measurements of the radio absorption length of the ice from 100-1000MHz, radio birefringence in the ice, and ice index of refraction, all measured as a function of depth and ice temperature.

(4) The McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research (MCM-LTER) Program is an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary study of the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems in an ice-free region of Antarctica. The MCM-LTER has studied Dry Valleys ecosystems since 1993 and observed their responses to climate variations over time. Landscape connectivity, such as streams connecting glaciers to lakes, and lake level rise connecting upland soils, is recognized to be influenced by climate and geological drivers. Researchers hypothesize that increased ecological connectivity within the Dry Valleys will amplify exchange of biota, energy, and matter, homogenizing ecosystem structure and functioning. During the MCM-LTER program, researchers will examine how climate variation alters connectivity among landscape units, and how biota (species, populations, and communities) are connected across this heterogeneous landscape, using state-of-the-art science tools and methods, including ongoing and expanded automated sensor networks, analysis of seasonal satellite imagery, biogeochemical analyses, and next-generation sequencing. Researchers (PI Doran; C-511-M) will utilize the Sediment Laden Lake Ice Drill to make holes in the permanent lake ice of the Dry Valleys for access to deployed equipment and melting out cables in the ice.

(5) The Phase 2 Development of a Rapid Access Ice Drilling (RAID) Platform for Research in Antarctica project (PIs Goodge and Severinghaus; D-552-M) will conduct system updates, maintenance, and functional tests of a new drill head and cutting tool for the RAID platform. Upon request by the PIs, IDP is deploying one engineer to serve as the team leader for the maintenance season.

IDP successfully supported seven projects during the 2018 Arctic field season.

(1) The Genetic, Phylogenetic and Functional Microbial Diversity in Permanently Frozen Aquatic Sediments Over Geological Time project (PI Vishnivetskaya; NSF award #1442262) successfully collected shallow permafrost cores in Svalbard using a SIPRE hand auger and a new Stihl BT121 power head. This was the first permafrost coring utilizing equipment in the IDP inventory. The permafrost cores will be used to investigate whether microbes embedded in permafrost are extinct, representing ancient terrestrial surface or marine communities preserved through time, or actively living communities that have been evolving since being buried.

(2) The Refreezing in the Firn of the Greenland Ice Sheet project (PI Rennermalm; NSF award #1604058) collected several shallow firn cores from the southwestern sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet using an IDDO hand auger and Sidewinder kit. The firn cores will be used to investigate the stratigraphy, density, temperature, and liquid water content of the firn cover and its spatial and temporal variations.

(3) The Quantifying Heat/Mass Structure and Fluxes through the Full Thickness of Greenland's Percolation Zone project (PI Harper; NSF award #1717241) collected two shallow firn cores in western Greenland using an IDDO hand auger and Sidewinder kit. The shallow cores were used to quantify firn density and provided access for temperature logging of the shallow firn thickness. The goal of the multiyear project is to use a combination of shallow and deep cores/boreholes to quantify the structure, thermal state, and heat fluxes through the full thickness of the firn column across a transect spanning western Greenland's percolation zone. The researchers are using their own hot water drill to drill the deep (up to 100 meters) boreholes.

(4) The Wireless Analysis Tool for Subsurface Observation of Northern-ice-sheets (WATSON) project (PI Bhartia; NASA PSTAR) successfully utilized the IDP Geovision borehole camera to inspect an existing borehole drilled by IDP during the 2017 Arctic field season near Summit Station, Greenland. The researchers intend to utilize the borehole during the 2019 field season. The objective of the project is to develop an ice drill integrated with a deep-UV fluorescence analytical instrument, with the ultimate goal of deploying the drill/instrument to Mars. The immediate project is conducting tests of the drill/instrument at planetary analog sites in Greenland.

(5) The Geophysical Reconnaissance to Expand Ice Core Hydroclimate Reconstructions in the Northeast Pacific project (PI Kreutz; NSF award #1502783) successfully operated IDP's new 2-Inch Stampfli Drill at the researchers' Divide Camp in the St. Elias Mountains, Yukon Territory, Canada. One firn core was collected to 20 meters and a second firn core to 10 meters depth. Weather and flight operations hampered the researchers' ability to experiment further with the new drill, however, the recovered core met their scientific needs and the researchers provided IDP with valuable feedback on the equipment. The researchers have maintained automatic weather stations at the Divide Camp since 2002, which represents an unprecedented observational record of snow accumulation and associated weather conditions in this glaciated region. The researchers plan to calibrate the firn core-based snow accumulation, temperature, and hydroclimate signals to the automatic weather station data.

(6) The Measuring Snow Compaction on Ice Sheets project (PI Kingslake; Columbia University internal funding) collected six shallow cores from the Juneau Ice Field using an IDDO hand auger and Sidewinder kit. The goal of the project is to develop a new capability to rapidly measure the density and rate of densification of firn using ApRES (autonomous phase-sensitive radio-echo sounder). The researchers are using firn-density profiles and records of ice lens developed from the cores to compare to ApRES-derived densities.

(7) The Reconstructing Ancient Human and Ecosystem Responses to Holocene Climate Conditions projected (PI McWethy; NSF award #1832486) utilized the Prairie Dog drill system and a PI-supplied hand auger to recover firn/ice cores from the Beartooth ice patches in Montana over Labor Day weekend. The drive shaft to the Prairie Dog drill broke during drilling preventing retrieval of cores to the full depth desired. The researchers were successful, however, in recovering 8.5 meters of newly accumulated snow/firn since their last visit to the ice patches in 2016. The researchers are studying the ice patches to better understand past climatic conditions and human use of high elevations in the northern Rocky Mountains prior to the arrival of Europeans.

In early June, IDDO turned its attention to cargo preparation for the Law Dome field project (PI Petrenko). IDDO staff have been participating in regular teleconferences with the science team and the Australian Antarctic Division to prepare for the joint U.S.-Australian supported fieldwork. At IDDO, an extensive cleaning protocol was implemented for a 4-Inch Drill, a Badger-Eclipse Drill and the Blue Ice Drill, to ensure carbon-free sampling during the upcoming Law Dome project. Drill parts underwent ultrasonic cleaning in acetone, followed by further cleaning in ethanol and deionized water. Metal parts such as coring heads, cutters, etc. were further baked overnight in an environmental chamber. The cargo was subsequently shipped on July 26, 2018, to Port Hueneme, CA, eventually bound for Hobart, Tasmania.

The second quarter saw the start of the 2018 Arctic field season. IDDO is providing support to the following projects:

(1) The Genetic, Phylogenetic and Functional Microbial Diversity in Permanently Frozen Aquatic Sediments Over Geological Time project (PI Vishnivetskaya; NSF award # 1442262) used a SIPRE hand auger in May to collect permafrost cores from Svalbard to investigate whether microbes embedded in permafrost are extinct, representing ancient terrestrial surface or marine communities preserved through time, or actively living communities that have been evolving since being buried.

(2) The Refreezing in the Firn of the Greenland Ice Sheet project (PI Rennermalm; NSF award # 1604058) is currently using an IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder to collect several shallow firn cores from the southwestern sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet. The firn cores will be used to investigate the stratigraphy, density, temperature and liquid water content of the firn cover and its spatial and temporal variations. The goal of the project is to better understand how the surface meltwater generated in the summer makes its way from its location on the ice sheet to the ocean.

(3) The Quantifying Heat/Mass Structure and Fluxes through the Full Thickness of Greenland's Percolation Zone project (PI Harper; NSF award # 1717241) will use a combination of shallow and deep cores/boreholes at a series of sites between Swiss Camp and Crawford Point to quantify the structure, thermal state, and heat fluxes through the full thickness of the firn column across a transect spanning western Greenland's percolation zone. Deep (up to 100 meters) boreholes will be drilled using hot water methods via a drill that is developed by the investigators. These deep boreholes will be augmented with a number of shallow cores to quantify density and provide access for temperature logging of the shallow firn thickness. The shallow cores will be drilled with an IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder.

(4) The Geophysical Reconnaissance to Expand Ice Core Hydroclimate Reconstructions in the Northeast Pacific project (PI Kreutz; NSF award #1502783) will use the Stampfli 2-Inch Drill to recover one 50-meter firn core and at least two 20-meter firn cores from the Divide Camp in the St. Elias Mountains, Yukon Territory, Canada. The investigators have maintained automatic weather stations at the Divide Camp since 2002, which represents an unprecedented observational record of snow accumulation and associated weather conditions in this glaciated region. By collecting a firn core to ~50 meters depth and analyzing stratigraphy (melt layers) and samples for stable water isotopes, the investigators will calibrate the ice core-based snow accumulation, temperature, and hydroclimate signals using the automatic weather station data. The investigators will also collect ground penetrating radar (GPR) data at the Divide Camp to investigate glacier geometry and spatial snow accumulation patterns and will ground truth the GPR data using the shallow (~20-meter depth) firn cores on a gridded basis.

(5) The Measuring Snow Compaction on Ice Sheets to Better Quantify Ice-Sheet Changes project (PI Kingslake; Columbia University internal funding) will conduct a pilot study in Juneau Ice Field, Alaska, to demonstrate the use of phase-sensitive ice-penetrating radar system (ApRES) for measuring firn densities and compaction rates. Within the accumulation area of Juneau Ice Field, the investigators will use an IDDO Hand Auger and Sidewinder to drill shallow firn cores to 40 meters depth and measure snow and firn density for comparison with the ApRES-derived densities. The goal of the project is to develop a new capability to rapidly measure the density and rate of densification of firn using ApRES.

IDDO deployed four separate drilling/logging systems for use during the 2017-2018 season, along with three IDDO equipment operators.

IDDO engineer Tanner Kuhl accompanied the 4-Inch Drill and Deep Logging Winch to Minna Bluff for the Rapid Access Ice Drill (RAID) second Antarctic field trial (AFT2; PIs Goodge and Severinghaus; D-551-M) project. The 4-Inch Drill was used successfully to drill one hole to 131 meters, with firn air samples collected by the science team (PI Severinghaus; D-551-M) from nine separate depths. The 4-Inch Drill coring activities found the firn-ice transition at Minna Bluff to be at approximately 82 meters depth, providing valuable firn-ice transition data for the nearby RAID AFT2 operations. IDDO's Deep Logging Winch was deployed to allow for logging of the RAID AFT2 boreholes using Ryan Bay's optical logging tool. The Deep Logging Winch was ultimately not used during the RAID AFT2, however, as the RAID system was unable to complete a hole to depth. While development, fabrication and testing of the RAID system is being conducted by DOSECC Exploration Services LLC and is not an IDPO-IDDO activity, Kuhl's deployment to Minna Bluff also gave him the opportunity to drill with the RAID field team, learn about the RAID system operation, and provide trouble-shooting support to the RAID team.

The Intermediate Depth Logging Winch was sent to the South Pole, where it was used successfully by the Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) field team (PI Karle; A-107-S) to log the existing South Pole Ice Core (SPICEcore) borehole to gather physical properties data as well as radio properties and ARA calibration data. IDDO engineer Chris Gibson joined the ARA field team at the South Pole this season to gain valuable hands-on experience with their hot water drilling operation.

The Winkie Drill successfully completed its second field season, this time in Ong Valley (PIs Putkonen and Morgan; G-192-M). Drill upgrades made in Madison following the previous project in the Ohio Range proved successful, and IDDO engineer Grant Boeckmann was able to collect quality mixed media cores consisting of ice, silt and rock. While the original project goal was to collect three cores from two separate sites (six cores total), the ice encountered contained much more sand, silt and rock than the PIs anticipated. One core was collected at each of the two sites, with one core to 10 meters and one to 12 meters depth. The higher debris content proved very useful for the science goals, reducing the number of holes needed.

IDDO also supported six hand auger projects during the 2017-2018 field season through the provision of Hand Auger and Sidewinder equipment.

IDDO is providing support to the following projects during the 2017-2018 Antarctic field season:

(1) the Buried Glacier Ice Masses, Ong Valley, Transantarctic Mountains project (PI Putkonen; G-192-M) will use the Winkie Drill and a hand auger to access a large body of ice that is buried beneath approximately a meter of debris. Samples will be collected from this buried ice mass, down to a depth of 10 meters, and cosmogenic nuclide concentrations both in the overlying debris and in the till contained in the ice will be measured to determine the age of the ice and its rate of sublimation. IDDO is deploying one driller for the project.

(2) the Rapid Access Ice Drill (RAID) Antarctic Field Trial project (PIs Goodge and Severinghaus; D-551-M) will use the IDDO Deep Logging Winch to test a new optical borehole logger that is being designed and built for RAID. The new optical borehole logger will be deployed in the RAID field trial borehole near Minna Bluff. IDDO is deploying one driller for the project.

(3) in the context of the already planned RAID Minna Bluff field work, the Minna Bluff Firn Core and Firn Air Sampling project (PI Severinghaus; D-551-M) will use the 4-Inch Drill to drill a 100-meter firn core to measure density and to pump firn air at a limited number of depths. The main science goals are to 1) obtain an accurate accumulation rate and density profile to add to the calibration of firn densification models, and 2) to pump firn air samples for testing whether noble gas isotopes exhibit gravitational disequilibrium as seen in other high-accumulation sites such as Law Dome, East Antarctica. The IDDO engineer operating the Deep Logging Winch at Minna Bluff will also operate the 4-Inch Drill.

(4) the Radio and Optical Measurements of Glacial Ice Properties Using the SPICEcore Borehole project (PIs Halzen and Hanson; A-333-S) will utilize the Intermediate Depth Logging Winch to lower a series of optical+UV and radio sensor packages into the South Pole Ice Core (SPICEcore) borehole to the full depth of the hole (1751 meters). The science goals of the IceCube project include measurements of the radio absorption length of the ice from 100-1000MHz, radio birefringence in the ice, and ice index of refraction, all measured as a function of depth and ice temperature.

IDDO is also deploying one engineer to the South Pole to assist with the Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) hot water drilling efforts (PI Karle; A-107-S). This valuable opportunity will provide IDDO with hands-on experience with a hot water drilling system in the field. The engineer will also be available for consultation during the SPICEcore borehole logging.

IDDO successfully supported four projects during the 2017 Arctic field season.

Influence of Natural Ice Microstructure on Rheology in General Shear (PI Gerbi)
IDDO driller Mike Waszkiewicz deployed to Alaska in March along with an Eclipse Drill for PI Christopher Gerbi's project on Jarvis Glacier. IDDO shipped a hand auger and Sidewinder to Alaska in mid-April, at the request of the PI, to help with prospecting for drill sites in the glacier's shear margin. Despite formidable weather conditions including very high winds, project objectives were successfully completed with the collection of several cores from the shear margin.

Dynamic Observations of the Microstructural Evolution of Firn Under Load (PI Baker)
IDDO drillers Mike Jayred and Elizabeth Morton deployed to Summit, Greenland, in June along with an Eclipse Drill for PI Ian Baker's project. An 80-meter core was successfully drilled and all project goals were successfully completed. With extra time at Summit Station due to flight schedules, the two drillers also tested IDDO's new portable firn coring drill, the 2-Inch Stampfli Drill.

Refreezing in the Firn of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PI Rennermalm)
After completing pre-season hand auger training in Madison, WI, at the IDDO warehouse, PI Rennermalm's student successfully recovered five 20-25 meter cores and one 5-meter core from southern Greenland using an IDDO 3-inch hand auger and Sidewinder kit.

A Greenland Traverse for Accumulation and Climate Studies (GreenTrACS) (PI Osterberg)
PI Osterberg's GreenTrACS team used an IDDO 3-inch hand auger and Sidewinder kit to collect eight 27-33 meter cores and one and 24-meter core along a traverse of the West Greenland percolation zone. All season goals were successfully accomplished with the IDDO hand auger and sidewinder kit.

The second quarter saw the start of the 2017 Arctic field season. IDDO is providing support to the following projects:

(1) the Dynamic Observations of the Microstructural Evolution of Firn Under Load project (PI Baker; NSF award #1603239) will use an Eclipse Drill to extract an 80-meter core from Summit Station, Greenland. A suite of spectroscopy techniques will be used to monitor the 3-dimensional real-time densification of the core and the evolution of crystal orientation to determine the mechanisms of ice core densification and microstructure evolution as a function of depth. During the quarter, IDDO drillers Mike Jayred and Elizabeth Morton were in Madison to pack and prepare the Eclipse Drill equipment for the upcoming season, and the equipment shipped in early May for the June fieldwork.

(2) the Influence of Natural Ice Microstructure on Rheology in General Shear project (PI Gerbi; NSF award #1503924) used an Eclipse Drill to collect a series of surface-to-bed ice cores along the shear margin of Jarvis Glacier, in the eastern Alaska Range. The investigators will use the ice cores to study how the internal strength and microstructure of the ice affects the glacier's ice flow. During the quarter, IDDO driller Mike Waszkiewicz deployed to Alaska along with an Eclipse Drill. IDDO also shipped a hand auger and Sidewinder to help with prospecting for drill sites in the shear margin. The project was largely complete by the end of the quarter.

(3) the Refreezing in the Firn of the Greenland Ice Sheet project (PI Rennermalm; NSF award #1604058) will use a hand auger and Sidewinder to collect several shallow firn cores from the southwestern sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet. The firn cores will be used to investigate the stratigraphy, density, temperature and liquid water content of the firn cover and its spatial and temporal variations. The goal of the project is to better understand how the surface meltwater generated in the summer makes its way from its location on the ice sheet to the ocean. During the quarter, PI Rennermalm's student completed pre-season hand auger training in Madison, WI, at the IDDO warehouse. IDDO also shipped the hand auger equipment to Scotia, NY, and it was received by the PI in Greenland for the start of the field season in April.

(4) the Greenland Traverse for Accumulation and Climate Studies (GreenTrACS) project (PI Osterberg; NSF award #1417678) will use a hand auger and Sidewinder to drill several shallow ice cores along a traverse in the Western Greenland percolation zone. Continuous ground penetrating radar data will also be collected during the traverse. The research objectives include: (1) determining the patterns, in time and space, of snow accumulation in Western Greenland over the past 20-40 years; and (2) evaluating surface melt refreeze and englacial meltwater storage in the Western Greenland percolation zone over the past 20-40 years. During the quarter, IDDO shipped the hand auger equipment to Scotia, NY, and it was received by the PI in Greenland for the start of the field season in April.

In early April, IDDO received five flatbed trucks full of returning drilling and logging equipment from Port Hueneme, California. The cargo included equipment operated in support of 2016-2017 Antarctic field projects, as well as a large amount of DISC Drill equipment from the WAIS Divide project. IDDO staff unloaded the cargo and unpacked and dried the equipment, readying it for either maintenance/upgrade or storage in the IDDO warehouse for use on future projects.

In addition to the two sub-glacial rock drilling projects described above, IDDO successfully supported three projects at or near the South Pole, and one at WAIS Divide, during the 2016-2017 Antarctic field season. South Pole Ice Core (SPICEcore; PI Murat Aydin; I-164-S) operations were completed in just three years at South Pole, with 1751 meters of ice core drilled, one round of borehole logging (PI Ryan Bay; I-194-S) with the Intermediate Depth Logging Winch completed, and all equipment has now been removed from the site. Engineers Jay Johnson and Josh Goetz completed all remaining activities this season, with help from the science team onsite. Also near South Pole Station, drillers Mike Waszkiewicz and Elizabeth Morton completed a number of holes ranging from 5 to 125 meters depth using the IDDO 4-Inch Drill system (PI Michelle Koutnik; I-193-S). In West Antarctica, despite needing to make a last-minute operator change, borehole logging with the Deep Logging Winch was also successfully completed at WAIS Divide (PI Erin Pettit; I-166-M).

In the first quarter, IDDO's Antarctic field efforts included the successful deployment of two new rock coring drills.

The Agile Sub-Ice Geological (ASIG) Drill was deployed to the Pirrit Hills (PI John Stone; I-277-M) by traverse from WAIS Divide in December. IDDO Drillers Tanner Kuhl, Mike Jayred and Clayton Armstrong recovered more than 7 meters of ice core and 8 meters of rock core at a depth of 150 meters. Development of the new drill system, which is based on a field-proven minerals exploration drill rig, was completed in PY 2016. The system is capable of coring rock below 700 meters of ice. IDDO will work during the upcoming summer to perform maintenance and upgrades on the system to ready it for future field work.

The Winkie Drill was deployed to the Ohio Range region (PI Sujoy Mukhopadhyay: G-438-M) in late November for its first funded field project. IDDO engineer Grant Boeckmann and the science team drilled a series of shallow boreholes that resulted in the successful collection of five rock core samples and one sample of frozen and largely unconsolidated debris. The Winkie Drill system functioned very well for its first official deployment. Refinements will be made when the equipment returns from Antarctica this spring.

The Antarctic Support Contract (ASC) team made significant contributions to the successes this season through exceptional efforts to expedite additional drill equipment to both sites during the season and to swiftly return the equipment to McMurdo Station to meet the cargo vessel returning to the U.S.

Current - Antarctic 2016-2017

• Borehole Logging for RAID Minna Bluff Antarctic Field Trial (Goodge and Severinghaus)
• Exposed Rock Beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (Stone)
• Laser Dust Logging of South Pole Ice Core Borehole (Bay)
• Ohio Range Bedrock Samples (Mukhopadhyay and Ackert)
• South Pole Ice Core Project Close-out (Aydin)
• Upstream Ice and Firn Dynamics Affecting the South Pole Ice Core (Koutnik and Hawley)
• WAIS Divide Fabric and Texture Logging (Pettit and Obbard)

Upcoming - Arctic 2017

• Dynamic Observations of the Microstructural Evolution of Firn Under Load (Baker)
• Influence of natural ice microstructure on rheology in general shear (Gerbi)
• Microbes and Ice Formation in Inland Waters, USA (McKay)
• Refreezing in the firn of the Greenland ice sheet (Rennermalm)

For the latest information on our current and upcoming field projects, visit:
http://icedrill.org/fieldwork

During the 2016-2017 Antarctic field season, IDDO is providing support to the following projects:

(1) the South Pole Ice Core project (PI Aydin; I-164-S) will conclude its operations near South Pole Station. IDDO personnel will assist with shipping of all remaining ice cores (616 meters) from South Pole to McMurdo Station, and will disassemble the remaining drill equipment, core handling equipment, and drill tent, and prepare those items for retrograde to the US.

(2) the Laser Dust Logging and Fluorimetric Scanning of SPICE project (PI Bay; I-194-S) will use the Intermediate Depth Drill winch, cable, and tower – which is currently onsite at South Pole – to log the South Pole Ice Core (I-164-S) borehole with an oriented laser dust logger. The data from the borehole probe will be used to investigate the depth-age relationship in the South Pole Ice Core, to identify ash layers, and to investigate ice flow and ice sheet physical properties. IDDO plans to have one engineer onsite to operate the equipment, and the IDDO Intermediate Depth Logging Winch will also be onsite as a backup winch for the project.

(3) the Characterization of Upstream Ice and Firn Dynamics Affecting the South Pole Ice (SPICE) Core project (PI Koutnik; I-193-S) will use an IDDO hand auger and a 4-Inch Drill to drill several holes to depths ranging from 5 to 120 meters near South Pole Station. The holes will be utilized for the installation of strain meters as well as one 40-meter thermistor string. One 120-meter firn core will be collected and retrograded to the US. IDDO will deploy two drillers for the project.

(4) the Constraining Plio-Pleistocene West Antarctic Ice Sheet behavior from the Ohio Range and Scott Glacier project (PI Mukhopadhyay; G-438-M) will use IDDO's new Winkie Drill to core the ice-bed interface and subglacial bedrock at a site in the Ohio Range. Collected rock samples will be shipped to the PI's home institution for further analyses. IDDO will deploy one driller for the project.

(5) the Velvet Ice – Evolution of Fabric and Texture in Ice at WAIS Divide, West Antarctica project (PI Pettit; I-166-M) will use the Deep Logging Winch and the services of one IDDO winch operator to log the WAIS Divide Ice Core borehole with two different instruments to study the evolution of ice fabric and texture.

(6) the RAID Antarctic Field Trial project (PI Goodge; D-551-M) will use the IDDO Intermediate Depth Logging Winch to test a new optical borehole logger that is being designed and built for RAID. The new optical borehole logger will be deployed in the RAID field trial borehole near Minna Bluff.

(7) the EXPROBE–WAIS: Exposed Rock Beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, A Test for Interglacial Ice Sheet Collapse project (PI Stone; I-277-M) will use IDDO's new Agile Sub-Ice Geological (ASIG) Drill to core the ice-bed interface and subglacial bedrock at a site near Pirrit Hills in West Antarctica. Collected rock samples will be shipped to the PI's home institution for further analyses. IDDO will deploy three drillers for the project.

With the exception of Hand Auger and Sidewinder kits shipped from Madison, WI in late August, all IDDO cargo prepared for the 2016-2017 field season was successfully loaded onto one full flatbed truck on September 16, 2016 with only inches of room to spare. A number of field projects will be supported across Antarctica through use of a 4-Inch Drill system, IDDO's Intermediate Depth Logging Winch and Deep Logging Winch, components of the Intermediate Depth Drill system, and by IDDO's newest sub-glacial rock coring equipment, the Agile Sub-Ice Geological (ASIG) Drill and the Winkie Drill. Engineers and drillers will begin deploying in early November 2016.

In May and June, PI Erich Osterberg's Greenland Traverse for Accumulation and Climate Studies (GreenTrACS) field team had excellent success with an IDDO hand auger and Sidewinder on a snowmobile traverse between Raven Camp and Summit Station in Greenland, collecting seven ice cores measuring 20-30 meters in length each. The ice cores will be used to help determine the patterns of snow accumulation in Western Greenland over the past 20-40 years, and to evaluate surface melt refreeze and englacial meltwater storage in the Western Greenland percolation zone over the past 20-40 years. For more information about the project, visit http://greentracs.blogspot.com/.

Current - Arctic 2016

• Greenland Traverse for Accumulation and Climate Studies, Greenland (Osterberg)

Upcoming - North America 2016

• Environmental Archaeology Ice Cores, Wyoming (Lee)

Upcoming - Antarctic 2016-2017

• Borehole Logging for RAID Minna Bluff Antarctic Field Trial (Goodge and Severinghaus)
• Exposed Rock Beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (Stone)
• Laser Dust Logging of South Pole Ice Core Borehole (Bay)
• Ohio Range Bedrock Samples (Mukhopadhyay and Ackert)
• Upstream Ice and Firn Dynamics affecting the South Pole Ice Core (Koutnik and Hawley)
• WAIS Divide Fabric and Texture Logging (Pettit and Obbard)

Upcoming - North America 2017

• Microbes and Ice Formation in Inland Waters, USA (McKay)

For the latest information on our current and upcoming field projects, visit:
https://icedrill.org/fieldwork

Several other projects supported by IDPO-IDDO were also successfully brought to a close during the quarter. Drilling efforts for the cosmogenic C-14 project on Taylor Glacier were completed for the third and final year. Out at Allan Hills, an IDDO driller utilized an Eclipse Drill to successfully core three holes to bedrock, collecting precious ancient ice. A second Eclipse Drill project was completed at South Pole Station. Finally, after years of programmatic delays, IDDO was able to conclude its operations related to use of the DISC Drill at WAIS Divide. All equipment is now disassembled, packed, labeled and ready for return to the U.S. as flights allow. IDDO also successfully extended the borehole casing to allow for future logging operations, including planned logging during the 2016-2017 field season.

South Pole Ice Core (PI Aydin)
An IDDO team of seven engineers and drillers, led by Lead Driller Jay Johnson, successfully completed this two-year drilling endeavor at South Pole Station, achieving a final borehole depth of 1751 meters, 251 meters beyond the original goal of the project. All necessary retro cargo was readied for vessel and COMAIR transport back to the U.S., whereas the drill tent and other items were winterized for use again in 2016-2017.

WAIS Divide Deep (PI Albert)
IDDO Driller Jim Koehler arrived at WAIS Divide on 1/14/16, following weather and aircraft delays, and worked expediently to prepare the remaining DISC Drill items for return shipment to the U.S. Koehler also worked with ASC personnel to extend the borehole casing to two feet above the Arch floor level.

Taylor Glacier Blue Ice Cores (PI Petrenko)
IDDO Driller Mike Jayred operated the Blue Ice Drill (BID) in support of PI Vas Petrenko's C-14 of atmospheric methane fieldwork at Taylor Glacier. All science samples were successfully collected, with over 480 meters of core drilled over 35 drilling days. In total, over 40 holes were completed through approximately 530 drill runs. IDDO support of this three-year project is now concluded.

Climate Controls on Aerosol Fluxes in Taylor Valley (PI Aciego)
IDDO Driller Mike Jayred operated the Blue Ice Drill (BID) in support of PI Sarah Aciego's aerosol fluxes fieldwork at Taylor Glacier. All science samples were successfully collected in early November 2015, with 20 meters of core collected during this short duration project.

Allan Hills (PI Higgins)
IDDO Driller Mike Waszkiewicz operated an IDDO Eclipse Drill at Allan Hills in support of PI John Higgins' ancient ice fieldwork. All science samples were successfully collected. Each of the two planned holes were drilled to bedrock, with the first hole drilled to a depth of 100 meters and the second hole to a depth of 205 meters. The team was also able to re-enter a third hole that was originally drilled in 2011, coring an additional 20 meters of what is believed to be million year old ice.

South Pole Firn Air (PI Sowers)
Trevor Popp, an American driller and scientist working at the Centre for Ice and Climate in Copenhagen, Denmark, operated an IDDO Eclipse Drill at South Pole in support of PI Todd Sowers' firn air sampling campaign. In early November 2015, Popp set up the drill and began drilling without incident. Firn air sampling was progressing well until the firn air bladder provided by and operated by the science team became stuck in the borehole at 100 meters depth. Following unsuccessful efforts by the science team, IDDO, and ASC to retrieve the firn air sampling equipment, the hole was abandoned and efforts were redirected to drilling of the second hole, which was successfully drilled to 128 meters. Core quality was excellent throughout and the penetration rate was exceptional.

Hand Augers
During the 2015-2016 Antarctic field season, IDDO supported ten investigators through the deployment of a variety of hand auger and Sidewinder kits. The hand auger kits are currently en-route back to the U.S. via the cargo vessel.

Crary Ice Rise Shot Holes (PI Conway)
IDDO supplied PIs Twit Conway and Paul Winberry with a Small Hot Water Drill to create shot holes for their Crary Ice Rise seismic work. All shot holes were successfully drilled by the science team, and the equipment is currently onboard the cargo vessel headed to the U.S.

Exposed Rock Beneath the WAIS (PI Stone)
In anticipation of the upcoming 2016-2017 fieldwork, IDDO shipped borehole casing and drill rod for the ASIG Drill to Antarctica via the resupply vessel. These items are planned for use during the 2016-2017 field season to support PI John Stone's fieldwork near Pirrit Hills. The borehole casing and drill rods were shipped early to reduce ASC's shipping costs and to allow the cargo to be flown to West Antarctica in 2016-2017 on flights of opportunity.

On January 23, 2016, a team of seven IDDO engineers and drillers concluded drilling operations at South Pole Station in support of the two-year South Pole Ice Core project (SPICEcore; PI Murat Aydin). Supported by the SPICEcore PIs and fantastic science techs, the team reached a final borehole depth of 1751 meters, surpassing the original target of 1500 meters! With NSF permission, the drilling continued within the originally established schedule and the extra meters collected have ensured that the much sought-after Laschamp Event has been captured in the core samples. Nearly 550 meters of core, enough to fill one refrigerated SAFECORE shipping container, are now on the cargo vessel bound for the U.S. In addition, the core storage trench at the South Pole is full of cores that will fill yet another SAFECORE container in February 2017. The cores will then be transported to the U.S. National Ice Core Laboratory for processing. IDDO disassembled and packed much of the drilling equipment and extended the borehole casing to allow for future borehole logging operations. A limited IDDO crew of 1-2 people will return to the site during the 2016-2017 season to assist with borehole logging, to disassemble and pack any remaining equipment, and to remove the drill tent with assistance from ASC and the science techs on site.

During the 2015-2016 Antarctic field season, IDDO is providing support to the following projects:

(1) the South Pole Ice Core project (PI Murat Aydin; I-164-S) will continue its use of the Intermediate Depth Drill to collect a 1500 meter ice core. The ice core will provide an environmental record spanning approximately 40,000 years that will be used to investigate the magnitude and timing of changes in climate and climate forcing through time. The target of 40,000 years spans the transition from the peak of the last glacial period when ice sheets were at their maximum extent – referred to as the Last Glacial Maximum – to the present warm period (the Holocene) called an interglacial. One of the primary motivations for collecting an ice core from the South Pole is that it will provide one of the best trace gas records possible due to the very cold temperatures and low impurity levels at the South Pole. In addition to providing the Intermediate Depth Drill for the project, IDDO is also providing seven drillers to operate the drill throughout the season.

(2) the South Pole Firn Air project (PI Jeff Severinghaus; I-191-S) will use a Badger-Eclipse Drill to incrementally drill two 3-inch diameter holes to 130 meters depth for firn air sampling near the South Pole Ice Core project (PI Murat Aydin; I-164-S) drill site. The primary objective of the project is to construct the gas chronology for the South Pole ice core using inert gases (d15N, d40Ar) and methane in combination with a next-generation firn densification model. Reconstruction of the inert gases and methane in the South Pole ice core will improve the dating of the ice core record, to unprecedented precision, which will enhance the overall scientific return from the ice core.

(3) the Climatic and Glaciological Controls on the Formation of High-Altitude Ablation Moraines project (PI Kathy Licht; G-095-M) will use a hand auger to collect short ice cores from the Mt. Achernar, Transantarctic Mountains, region to recover ice for visual inspection and various types of isotopic analysis. The primary objective of the project is to gain an improved understanding of processes and rates of blue ice moraine formation, as well as identifying the topographic, glaciological, and climatic controls on their evolution. Field data related to ice motion and internal stratigraphy will be collected and used as part of a baseline dataset for a numerical model.

(4) the Crary Ice Rise Shot Holes project (PI Howard Conway; I-323-M) will use an IDDO provided small hot water drill to create shot holes for subsequent seismic work. The project aims to understand the dynamics of ice rises – grounded islands within ice shelves – as they result in a major resistive force on ice flowing from the grounded ice sheets into the ocean. An integrated collection of geophysical observations, including radar and active source seismic experiments, on both the Crary Ice Rise and across its grounding line will be used to address questions about how the ice rise affects ice discharge from the Ross Sea sector of West Antarctica.

(5) the RAID Auger and Packer Test (PI John Goodge; D-551-M) will use a variety of IDDO equipment to test whether a critical component of the Rapid Access Ice Drill (RAID) system, a rubber packer designed to make a seal against the ice borehole wall, functions adequately in natural, glacial ice. A second goal is testing whether an auger can successfully make a hole all the way through the firn layer, which is the intended method of drilling through the firn for RAID operations.

(6) the Carbon-14 of Atmospheric Methane project (PI Vas Petrenko; I-159-M) project will continue its use of the specialized Blue Ice Drill to collect large-diameter ice cores from the blue ice zone on Taylor Glacier that span the last deglaciation and the Early Holocene. The scientists require large-diameter ice cores to extract enough methane to analyze for the rare carbon-14 isotope of methane. The methane analyses will help pinpoint the source(s) of the greenhouse gas during past abrupt climate changes, and will also help scientists understand how modern-day sources of methane may respond to a warming world.

(7) the Climate Controls on Aerosol Fluxes in Taylor Valley project (PI Sarah Aciego; I-184-M) will use the Blue Ice Drill to collect one ice core to a depth of 20 meters for subsequent analysis of dust concentration, dust size distribution, bulk major elements, bulk trace elements, and radiogenic isotope composition. These measurements will be used to deduce the changing climate of the Taylor Dome area from the Last Glacial Maximum through the Holocene.

(8) the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area project (PI John Higgins; I-165-M) will use a Badger-Eclipse Drill to drill one 150 meter depth ice core and one 200 meter depth ice core, as well as several shallow ice cores with a hand auger, to build on recent studies of ancient ice from the area. Previous studies from the area have obtained ice extending, discontinuously, from 0.1 million years ago (Ma) to one Ma. The climate records developed from the newly drilled ice cores will provide new insights into the chemical composition of the atmosphere and Antarctic climate during times of comparable or even greater warmth than the present day.

The Third Quarter (May 1, 2015 - July 31, 2015) saw the 2015 Arctic season come to a close and preparations ramp up for the approaching 2015-2016 Antarctic season. IDDO received the remainder of its equipment back from Greenland and worked to complete repairs and modifications. Equipment will begin shipping to Antarctica early in the Fourth Quarter.

Current – Arctic 2015

• Cosmogenic Carbon-14 in Polar Firn, Greenland (Petrenko)
• Disko Bay and Baffin Bay Firn and Ice Cores, Greenland (Das)
• Greenland Aquifer Investigation (Forster)
• Microbes and Ice Formation in Inland Waters, USA (McKay)

Upcoming – Antarctic 2015-2016

• Aerosol Fluxes to Taylor Dome/Glacier (Aciego)
• Carbon-14 from Taylor Glacier Blue Ice Cores (Petrenko)
• South Pole 1500-meter Ice Core (Aydin)

For the latest information on our current and upcoming field projects, visit:
https://icedrill.org/fieldwork

If you are preparing a proposal that includes any kind of ice drilling or ice coring support from IDPO-IDDO, you must complete a Field Project Support Requirements Form (www.icedrill.org/scientists/scientists.shtml) and submit it to IDPO-IDDO via icedrill@dartmouth.edu at least six weeks before your proposal deadline. Once IDPO-IDDO receives your Field Project Support Requirements Form, we will provide you with a Letter of Support and Scope of Work/Cost Estimate document that MUST be included with your proposal. If you are submitting a proposal to NSF, the Letter of Support and Scope of Work/Cost Estimate document should be included as Supplemental Information in your proposal, and it is recommended that you also notify the relevant NSF Program Manager that your proposal requires support from IDPO-IDDO.

In late March, IDDO engineer Josh Goetz deployed with the Greenland Firn Aquifer project science team (Forster, PI) to Kulusuk in Southeast (SE) Greenland. After issues with poor weather and with helicopter availability, the team made it into the icecap in SE Greenland and drilled the first of four planned holes into the firn aquifer layer using the Electrothermal Drill. A thermistor string was placed in the borehole, and while the plan was to then move to a second site, an unusually heavy pair of storms descended upon the camp, dropping approximately 2.5 meters of snow in just five days, precluding movement to the second site. Shown in the photo below, snow has completely covered the drill winch and nearly half of the 3.2 meter tall drill tower. It is surmised that the first storm encountered was the remnant of a hurricane that formed off the coast of Newfoundland.

With the 2013-2014 field season at WAIS Divide canceled due to the government shutdown, IDDO re-planned its efforts for 2014-2015 for disassembly and packing of the DISC Drill at the site. Four IDDO personnel deployed from the U.S. in early December, and three ended up facing 20 days of aircraft and weather delays in McMurdo. With excellent teamwork between IDDO, ASC, and the borehole logging scientists (also at WAIS Divide this year), as well as NSF and ASC's willingness to extend the field season at WAIS Divide in light of the delays, the teams were able to successfully complete the majority of logging objectives for the season! In addition the team was able to dismantle much of the DISC Drill equipment in a very short amount of time. A portion of the drill will now return to Madison and the rest will remain at WAIS Divide over winter until future flight opportunities in 2015-2016. IDDO and ASC will continue to work closely together to plan for disassembly and removal of the remaining items from the drill arch, including IDDO's yellow gantry crane, the crane rails, and the drill control room, as well as to coordinate extending of the borehole casing up to the arch floor level next year.

On Taylor Glacier in the Dry Valleys region, driller Mike Jayred successfully drilled over 930 meters of large-diameter ice cores for PIs Vas Petrenko, Ed Brook and Jeff Severinghaus using the IDDO Blue Ice Drill. Over 1,000 drill runs were completed and 52 holes were drilled. Cores were again melted onsite for in-field gas analysis. The Blue Ice Drill is now being returned to Madison for minor repairs, cleaning, and re-packing prior to its use in Greenland in May.

Despite weather, aircraft and program administrative delays, IDDO, together with the Antarctic Support Contractor (ASC) and project investigators, successfully completed the first season of the planned two-season South Pole Ice Core project near the South Pole Station. The project aims to recover a 1,500-meter ice core with IDDO's new Intermediate Depth Drill (IDD). A crew of seven IDDO engineers and drillers deployed in early November 2014 to Antarctica to begin set up of the drill site and installation of the IDD. Together with onsite PI, post-docs, and a graduate student core processing staff, the field team surpassed its seasonal drilling goal of 700 meters, collecting 736 meters in total. Nearly 600 meters of core, enough to fill one SAFECORE refrigerated shipping container, safely arrived to the National Ice Core Laboratory in Denver, CO, on March 4, where it will remain for processing this summer.

Current – Antarctic 2014-2015

• Carbon-14 from Taylor Glacier Blue Ice Cores (Petrenko)
• South Pole 1500-meter Ice Core (Aydin)
• WAIS Divide Borehole Temperature Logging (Clow)
• WAIS Divide Fabric and Texture Logging (Pettit and Obbard)
• WAIS Divide Optical Logging (Bay and Talghader)
• WAIS Divide Vertical Seismic Profiling (Riverman)

Upcoming – Arctic 2015

• Cosmogenic Carbon-14 in Polar Firn, Greenland (Petrenko)
• Disko Bay and Baffin Bay Firn and Ice Cores, Greenland (Das)
• Greenland Aquifer Investigation (Forster)
• Microbes and Ice Formation in Inland Waters, USA (McKay)

Upcoming – Antarctic 2015-2016

• Aerosol Fluxes to Taylor Dome/Glacier (Aciego)
• Carbon-14 from Taylor Glacier Blue Ice Cores (Petrenko)
• Ohio Range Ice-Rock Interface Samples (Mukhopadhyay)
• South Pole 1500-meter Ice Core (Aydin)

For the latest information on our current and upcoming field projects, visit:
https://icedrill.org/fieldwork

During the 2014-15 Antarctic field season IDDO is providing support to three projects:

(1) the Carbon-14 of Atmospheric Methane project (Petrenko, PI) will use the specialized Blue Ice Drill to collect large-diameter ice cores from the blue ice zone on Taylor Glacier that span the last deglaciation and the Early Holocene. The scientists require large-diameter ice cores to extract enough methane to analyze for the rare carbon-14 isotope of methane. The methane analyses will help pinpoint the source(s) of the greenhouse gas during past abrupt climate changes, and will also help scientists understand how modern-day sources of methane may respond to a warming world.

(2) the South Pole Ice Core project (Aydin, PI) will use IDDO's new Intermediate Depth Drill to begin collection of a 1500 meter ice core. The project will collect the ice core over the course of two field seasons from a site approximately 3 kilometers from South Pole Station. The ice core will provide an environmental record spanning approximately 40,000 years that will be used to investigate the magnitude and timing of changes in climate and climate forcing through time. The target of 40,000 years spans the transition from the peak of the last glacial period when ice sheets were at their maximum extent — referred to as the Last Glacial Maximum — to the present warm period (the Holocene) called an interglacial. One of our primary motivations for collecting an ice core from the South Pole is that it will provide one of the best trace gas records possible due to the very cold temperatures and low impurity levels at the South Pole. In addition to providing the Intermediate Depth Drill for the project, IDDO is also providing seven drillers to operate the drill throughout the season.

(3) In support of the ongoing work at WAIS Divide, IDDO will assist with borehole logging operations, and will also disassemble the Deep Ice Sheet Coring (DISC) Drill system and prepare it for transport back to Madison, Wisconsin. The borehole logging operations consist of temperature (Clow, PI), seismic (Peters, PI), optical (Bay and Talghader, PIs) and acoustic televiewer logging (Pettit and Obbard, PIs). The temperature data will be used to refine estimates of the geothermal heat flow at the site, the melting rate at the base of the ice sheet, and to reconstruct past surface temperatures using borehole paleothermometry. The seismic data will be used to study the ice fabric, which will be linked to the physical properties of the WAIS Divide ice core. The optical data will be used to study the dust, crystal structure and ice fabric at the site. The acoustic televiewer will measure the shape and tilt of the borehole at high resolution to form a basis for measuring future changes in borehole shape and tilt. The changes in borehole shape and tilt over time will be used to study ice deformation.

During the recent Arctic field season, IDDO again supported PI Vas Petrenko's Carbon-14 sampling efforts outside of Summit Station, Greenland using IDDO's Blue Ice Drill (BID). Despite early season challenges that saw one of the two IDDO drillers and three of Petrenko's science technicians returned home for medical reasons, the team rebounded during the following flight period. With assistance from additional science technicians and help from IDDO drillers already in Greenland for the IDD test, the team was able to successfully complete all drilling and sampling objectives. The large-diameter ice cores drilled by the BID were again melted onsite for in-field gas analysis. In addition to the use of the base BID system, IDDO also tested components of the new BID-Deep system, which will enable the drill to reach depths down to 200 meters. This testing was in preparation for a related project being conducted by Petrenko in the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica. BID-Deep testing resulted in the drilling of a 187 meter borehole. Core quality was found to be an issue after approximately 140 meters, however IDDO engineers were able to determine that the fabrication of less aggressive cutters should substantially improve core quality at these depths in the future. Over the course of the season, a total of 59 holes were drilled over 26 days of drilling. 1258 meters of core were recovered in a total of 1151 drill runs. The drill was returned to Madison in mid-July, where it was repaired and subsequently shipped to Antarctica in late August.

In addition to the large field projects supported by IDDO in Greenland, IDDO also provided hand auger and Sidewinder equipment to PI David Noone for the fourth and final season of his four-year field project. All equipment was returned to Madison for repair and cleaning following the field work. Another project in Northwest Greenland, PI Erich Osterberg completed shallow drilling outside of Thule Air Base, also using IDDO hand auger equipment. That equipment is in the process of being returned to Madison on flights of opportunity out of Thule.

Late in the third Quarter, in addition to all of the drill system repairs and modifications going on, IDDO also looked toward the upcoming Antarctic season, working with the Berg Field Center (BFC) in McMurdo as well as with PIs to plan for a variety of hand auger projects during the upcoming austral summer. IDDO also initiated the hiring process for the SPICE Core project, to be conducted at the South Pole using the Intermediate Depth Drill, and for the WAIS Divide Ice Core project, in which the DISC Drill will be fully disassembled and packed for return to the U.S.

Current (or Recently Completed) – Arctic 2014

• Cosmogenic Carbon-14 in Polar Firn, Greenland (Petrenko)
• Disko Bay and Baffin Bay Firn and Ice Cores, Greenland (Das)
• Intermediate Depth Drill Field Test, Greenland (IDPO-IDDO)
• Isotope Hydrology at Summit, Greenland (Noone)
• Response of the NW Greenland Cryosphere to Holocene Climate Change (Osterberg)

Upcoming – Antarctic 2014-2015

• Carbon-14 from Taylor Glacier Blue Ice Cores (Petrenko)
• Roosevelt Island Borehole Logging (Hawley)
• South Pole 1500-meter Ice Core (Saltzman)
• WAIS Divide Fabric and Texture Logging (Pettit and Obbard)
• WAIS Divide Optical Logging (Bay)
• WAIS Divide Borehole Temperature Logging (Clow)
• WAIS Divide Vertical Seismic Profiling (Peters)

For the latest information on our current and upcoming field projects, visit:
https://icedrill.org/fieldwork

The second quarter (February 1, 2014 - April 30, 2014) saw several Antarctic projects closed out, with final End-of-Season Reports submitted for the Blue Ice Drill's work on Taylor Glacier and for a successful first deployment of IDDO's new Intermediate Depth Logging Winch at Siple Dome. Later in the quarter, IDDO also worked hard to compile and review information for three Support Information Packages for the following 2014-2015 Antarctic field season.

Substantial efforts during the second quarter brought the final setup of IDDO's new Intermediate Depth Drill (IDD) to life. The majority of the equipment was shipped to Scotia, NY by the end of March, with certain critical components shipped shortly after. A team of six drillers completed the PQ process, and all travel arrangements for their deployment were made. The drillers deployed to Scotia on April 21, but were returned home on April 24, due to a mechanical issue with the LC-130 Hercules fleet. IDDO worked with the NSF, CH2M HILL Polar Field Services and the 109th Air National Guard to weigh options for an abbreviated test season and on April 30, the last day of the quarter, IDDO received a call that the northbound Greenland flights were back on. The IDDO crew made it to Summit, Greenland, on May 6 and had the first core drilled at the Isi test site on May 14. The testing of the Intermediate Depth Drill (in Greenland) is now finished. The last core was drilled on Saturday, May 31. The final depth of the test borehole is 285.3 meters. The drillers are now working on packing to prepare the first round of cargo for a flight to Kangerlussuaq on June 4. The remainder of the cargo is scheduled to fly to Kangerlussuaq on the June 10 flight. The drill team was able to complete all desired tests except for the brittle ice drilling test, due to the Hercules issue delaying the start of the field season.

IDDO continued monthly teleconferences with ASC and the SPICEcore PIs in preparation for the IDD's deployment to the South Pole in November 2014. In addition, engineer/ driller Tanner Kuhl attended the 2014 SPICE Core Planning Meeting at the University of California-Irvine.

IDDO worked with NSF, ASC and the dedicated cargo personnel in Scotia, NY to expedite the return of the Blue Ice Drill (BID) system to Madison after vessel-loading issues in McMurdo threatened to delay the return of much of the Antarctic cargo. The BID was needed in Madison in order for IDDO to implement new BID-Deep components and turn the system around for the upcoming Arctic field season. By the end of April, all cargo was packed for PI Vas Petrenko's upcoming project at Isi Camp, and driller Mike Jayred and engineer/driller Josh Goetz were PQed. Jayred and Goetz subsequently deployed on May 11.

IDDO also prepared for a few upcoming hand auger projects in Greenland. Kits were packed and shipped for PI Sarah Das, who used one of IDDO's new 3-Inch hand auger kits to drill shallow cores at one site on Disko Island and at two sites on the Nussuaq Peninsula in late April. A hand auger and Sidewinder kit were packed and shipped for PI Erich Osterberg, who plans to drill cores up to 40 meters depth outside of Thule airbase in late May. Initial preparations were also made for the packing and shipping of hand auger and Sidewinder equipment for PI David Noone's project at Summit Station. Noone's field work in late June and early July will mark the fourth and final year of his four-year project. One additional hand auger project was completed early in the quarter for PI Mike McKay at Bowling Green State University. McKay utilized a new IDDO hand auger to collect river and lake ice samples in the Midwest US as well as in Canada. His project, funded through the NSF Division of Environmental Biology, is scheduled to continue into 2016.

In addition to field season planning and cargo preparation, IDDO also completed proposal support estimates for thirteen separate science projects for the 2014 NSF Antarctic Proposal solicitation. Letters of Support and Cost Estimates were provided to PIs for inclusion in their proposal submissions.

Despite uncertainties surrounding and delays stemming from the government shutdown in Fall 2013, Antarctic fieldwork was successfully completed for IDDO-supported projects.

Taylor Glacier (PIs Aciego and Petrenko)
On Taylor Glacier in the Dry Valleys Region, IDDO driller Mike Jayred and IDDO engineer Josh Goetz successfully collected over 1300 meters of large-diameter ice cores using the Blue Ice Drill. Despite an intensely windy field season, project objectives were achieved for both PI Vas Petrenko and PI Sarah Aciego.

Siple Dome (PIs Bay and Talghader)
Due to the government shutdown, the U.S. Antarctic Program decided against opening WAIS Divide Camp this season. This has delayed borehole logging operations at WAIS Divide by one field season, but is not expected to negatively impact the disassembly and removal of the DISC Drill from the site, which is now scheduled to occur in 2014-2015. Due to the impact of the shutdown on the logging operations planned for WAIS Divide, PIs Joey Talghader and Ryan Bay altered their project plans to complete less logistically-intense logging projects at Siple Dome this season, both of which were originally planned for the 2014-2015 field season. Assisting in their operations were Josh Goetz and driller Elizabeth Morton. Despite severe flight delays and poor weather at Siple Dome, a very successful maiden voyage of IDDO's new Intermediate Depth Logging Winch helped to complete all project objectives.

Beardmore Glacier (PIs Conway and Winberry)
PIs Howard Conway and Paul Winberry utilized a Small Hot Water Drill once again to successfully drill over 100, 25-meter deep holes for seismic research on Beardmore Glacier, completing the second season of their two-year project.

Shallow Hand Auger Drilling (various PIs)
A number of shallow drilling projects were completed by PIs through the use of hand auger kits provided by IDDO, including two PICO hand auger kits, three SIPRE hand augers, two Sidewinder power drive kits and five new IDDO hand auger kits. The newly designed IDDO hand auger kit has shown excellent results thus far and IDDO continues to collect user feedback on the kit's performance.

Current - Antarctic 2013-2014

• Aerosol Fluxes to Taylor Dome and Taylor Glacier (Aciego)
• Beardmore Glacier Shot Holes, Antarctica (Conway)
• Carbon-14 from Taylor Glacier Blue Ice Cores (Petrenko)
• Roosevelt Island Borehole Logging (Hawley)
• Siple Dome Optical Borehole Logging (Bay and Talghader)

Upcoming - Arctic 2014

• Cosmogenic Carbon-14 in Polar Firn, Greenland (Petrenko)
• Disko Bay and Baffin Bay Firn and Ice Cores, Greenland (Das)
• Intermediate Depth Drill Field Test, Greenland (IDPO-IDDO)
• Isotope Hydrology at Summit, Greenland (Noone)

Upcoming - Antarctic 2014-2015

• Carbon-14 from Taylor Glacier Blue Ice Cores (Petrenko)
• South Pole 1500-meter Ice Core (Saltzman)
• WAIS Divide Fabric and Texture Logging (Pettit and Obbard)
• WAIS Divide Optical Logging (Bay)

For the latest information on our current and upcoming field projects, visit:
https://icedrill.org/fieldwork

During the 2013-2014 Antarctic field season IDDO is providing support to five projects: (1) the Climate Controls on Aerosol Fluxes to Taylor Dome and Taylor Glacier project (Aciego, PI) will use the Blue Ice Drill to collect shallow ice cores to investigate the changing climate of the Taylor Dome area from the Last Glacial Maximum through the Holocene; (2) the Carbon-14 in Taylor Glacier Ice project (Petrenko, PI) will use the Blue Ice Drill to collect large-diameter ice cores to understand the past methane budget and cosmogenic carbon-14 production rates; (3) the Roosevelt Island Borehole Logging project (Hawley, PI) will use a logging tower to help log the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution borehole to investigate the internal properties of the ice; (4) the Beardmore Glacier Dynamics project (PIs Conway and Winberry) will use a small hot water drill to create the shot holes needed for their seismic characterization of the subglacial environment of Beardmore Glacier; and (5) the Optical Fabric and Fiber Logging of Glacial Ice project (PIs Bay and Talghader) will use a logging tower and the intermediate depth logging winch to profile the Siple Dome borehole with optical logging instruments that permit the study of dust, crystal structure and ice fabric.

Current - Arctic 2013

• Isotope Hydrology at Summit, Greenland (Noone)

Upcoming - Antarctic 2013-14

• Aerosol Fluxes to Taylor Dome and Taylor Glacier (Aciego)
• Beardmore Glacier Shot Holes, Antarctica (Conway)
• Carbon-14 from Taylor Glacier Blue Ice Cores (Petrenko)
• Roosevelt Island Borehole Logging (Hawley)
• WAIS Divide Fabric and Texture Logging (Pettit and Obbard)
• WAIS Divide Optical Logging (Bay)

Upcoming - Arctic 2014

• Cosmogenic Carbon-14 in Polar Firn, Greenland (Petrenko)
• Disko Bay and Baffin Bay Firn and Ice Cores, Greenland (Das)
• Intermediate Depth Drill Field Test, Greenland (IDPO-IDDO)
• Isotope Hydrology at Summit, Greenland (Noone)

For the latest information on our current and upcoming field projects, visit:
https://icedrill.org/fieldwork

Denali (PI Osterberg)
IDDO provided driller Mike Waszkiewicz and a Badger-Eclipse Drill for PI Erich Osterberg's coring project in Denali National Park. Two holes were completed down to a depth of 208 meters each, resulting in excellent core quality. A new solar and wind system capable of powering the Badger-Eclipse Drill proved successful on its maiden field project. Such clean drilling efforts were praised by National Park Service staff and will continue to be utilized in the future.

Greenland Aerosol and Greenhouse Gases Core (PI McConnell)
Despite being forestalled by weather in previous attempts to drill ice cores on Tunu Glacier in Greenland several years ago, IDDO driller Bella Bergeron and the science field team were able to recover successfully over 350 meters of ice core during the month of May. Using an IDDO 4-Inch Drill, one hole was completed down to 213 meters while a second hole was completed down to 141 meters.

Greenland Cosmogenic C-14 Cores (PI Petrenko)
A team of three IDDO drillers, Lou Albershardt, Mike Jayred, and Tanner Kuhl, accompanied by a field science team was able to successfully utilize a Badger-Eclipse Drill to drill two holes for firn air pumping studies outside of Summit Station, Greenland. One hole was completed to 90 meters and another completed to 102 meters. In addition, the IDDO-designed Blue Ice Drill was put to the test to determine its ability to collect firn cores. The Blue Ice Drill is expected to undergo several modifications over the next year to enable additional firn coring in Greenland as well as to extend its depth capabilities in both firn and ice.

Greenland Perennial Firn Aquifer (PI Forster)
As a follow up to a previous project conducted by PI Rick Forster in SE Greenland, IDDO provided driller Jay Kyne and the IDDO Thermal Drill to drill through the firn aquifer layer. Two holes were completed down to 60 meter and 25 meters, respectively, each allowing the deployment of a thermistor string through the aquifer.

McCall Glacier Cores (PI Nolan)
PI Matt Nolan completed his third season of a three-year ice coring project on McCall Glacier in Alaska. Throughout the project, Nolan utilized both a 3-Inch and 4-Inch PICO Hand Auger to retrieve shallow core samples.

Summit Shallow Core Array (PI Noone)
PI David Noone's field team deployed late in the third quarter to continue their collection of shallow ice cores near Summit Station. To support this work, IDDO again provided a PICO hand auger and a new IDDO hand auger as well as a Sidewinder power drive system. This year marks the third year of IDDO's support of the four-year project.

Current - Arctic 2013

• Cosmogenic Carbon-14 in Polar Firn, Greenland (Petrenko)
• Denali Ice Core Record, Alaska (Osterberg)
• Greenland Aerosols and Methane Records, Greenland (McConnell/Brook)
• Greenland Perennial Firn Aquifer, Greenland (Forster)
• Isotope Hydrology at Summit, Greenland (Noone)
• McCall Glacier Ice Cores, Alaska (Nolan)

For the latest information on our current and upcoming field projects, visit:
https://icedrill.org/fieldwork

A very successful Antarctic field season was brought to a close in February, with all field personnel returning to the U.S. PI Howard Conway's field team had excellent success with an IDDO portable hot water drill on Beardmore Glacier, drilling nearly 170 shot holes and completing four seismic transects. At WAIS Divide, new and revolutionary technology with the DISC Drill enabled collection of replicate cores on the uphill side of the borehole. The field team was able to surpass the initial goal of 252 meters of replicate core, collecting a total of 285 meters of excellent ice core from depths of particular interest. This field season was the culmination of six years of drilling operations at WAIS Divide Camp. A variety of hand auger projects were also successfully completed in Antarctica.

Current

• Beardmore Glacier Shot Holes, Antarctica (Conway; fieldwork completed)
• Roosevelt Island Ice Core Borehole Logging, Antarctica (Hawley; fieldwork cancelled due to weather)
• Taylor Glacier Shallow Cores, Antarctica (Schaefer; fieldwork completed)
• WAIS Divide Replicate Coring, Antarctica (Severinghaus; fieldwork completed)

Upcoming - Arctic 2013

• Cosmogenic Carbon-14 in Polar Firn, Greenland (Petrenko)
• Denali Ice Core Record, Alaska (Osterberg)
• Greenland Aerosols and Methane Records, Greenland (McConnell and Brook)
• Greenland Perennial Firn Aquifer, Greenland (Forster)
• Isotope Hydrology at Summit, Greenland (Noone)
• McCall Glacier Ice Cores, Alaska (Nolan)

Upcoming - Antarctic 2013-14

• Beardmore Glacier Shot Holes, Antarctica (Conway)
• WAIS Divide Optical Logging (Bay)
• WAIS Divide Fabric and Texture Logging (Pettit and Obbard)

For the latest information on our current and upcoming field projects, visit:
https://icedrill.org/fieldwork

The deep drilling at WAIS Divide, Antarctica has come to a close. It took eight field seasons to prepare the remote field camp, to drill the 3,405 meter deep ice core (the longest ice core in U.S. history), and to collect the 285 meters of valuable replicate core (see story above), but we did it. On February 5, the National Science Foundation (NSF) released a press release celebrating this historic accomplishment. In case you didn't see the press release, it is available at:
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=126761&org=NSF&from=news

In addition to the NSF press release, The Antarctic Sun also released a great story about the success of replicate coring at WAIS Divide this season. The story is available at:
http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/contenthandler.cfm?id=2788

For the first time, significant innovations in ice drilling engineering are providing scientists with replicate ice cores from targeted depths and directions in the ice sheet!

The newly developed, state-of-the-art Replicate Ice Coring System was deployed in December 2012 to re-enter the 6.5-inch diameter deep borehole at WAIS Divide, Antarctica, and successfully allowed the researchers to drill through the wall of the 3,405 meter deep parent borehole and collect a total of 285 meters of additional core from five of the most interesting time periods in the WAIS Divide climate record.

The Replicate Ice Coring System is capable of retrieving additional ice cores from specific depths on the uphill side of the main (parent) borehole. The Replicate Coring technique, developed and tested by the IDDO engineers as part of the Deep Ice Sheet Coring (DISC) Drill, is a key advance, because it allows scientists to take samples from specific levels of a parent borehole without impeding the hole itself, leaving the parent borehole open for future logging of information.

The Replicate Ice Coring System collects additional ice at depths of interest by deploying into an existing borehole and then deviating from it. The drill uses two steering actuator sections to tilt itself in the parent borehole by applying sidewards force against the borehole wall. In the first step of the process, the broaching cutter head is deployed to the target depth. Using the actuators, the drill is tipped to the high ("up hill") side of the borehole to engage the cutters. Ice is removed in repeated passes of approximately 15 meters in the up-stroke. In the second step of the process, a milling head is deployed and creates a landing for the coring head. In the third step of the process, a coring head removes a 20 mm kerf and allows a 108 mm diameter core to enter the core barrel. Two meters of core are removed per trip. The coring is repeated until all of the desired replicate ice from the target depth is obtained.

The Replicate Ice Coring System builds on the existing infrastructure of the DISC Drill and thus requires substantial logistics and infrastructure support. However, the design and engineering behind the system is such that it can be scaled down for use with smaller, more agile drilling systems as well. The downhole portion of the DISC Drill, the sonde, was significantly modified to meet the requirements of steering out of the parent hole. The major components of the replicate sonde are described below.

Cable Interface Section
The existing cable interface section of the DISC Drill provides the connection to 4km of fiber optic cable.

Upper Actuator Section
The upper actuator section steers the drill, and with the anti-torque levels extended keeps the drill from spinning during cutting operations.

Instrument Section
The instrument section provides power and communications to operate the drill.

Lower Actuator Section
The lower actuator is identical to the upper actuator, but is configured with discs on the levers to provide smooth navigation.

Pump/Motor Section
The pump/motor section has a powerful pump for chip transport and contains the cutter motor.

Lower Sonde
The lower sonde includes chip barrels that collect the chips that are cut during coring, a core barrel to collect the core, and the coring head. The lower sonde can be assembled in multiple configurations to meet the needs of the different stages of the replicate coring process.

The University of California-Irvine (Saltzman, PI), University of Washington (Steig, PI) and University of New Hampshire (Twickler, PI) have recently been funded to obtain a 1500 meter ice core at the South Pole. Drilling is planned for 2014-2015 (~700 m, through the Holocene) and 2015-2016 (to 1500 m / 40,000 years). The drilling will be conducted with the new Intermediate Depth Drill currently under development by IDDO. The ice core obtained will be 9.8 cm in diameter, about 1/2 the volume of the WAIS Divide core, so availability of ice to the community will be less. Proposals to work on the core will need a letter of support from the South Pole Ice Core Executive Committee, currently composed of Eric Saltzman, Eric Steig, Murat Aydin, and Tom Neumann. If you intend to submit a proposal to work on the South Pole ice core, please let the Executive Committee know by sending an email to contact@spicecore.org. In particular, it is important to let them know if you have any special sampling needs, such as sampling in the field. Planning is already underway for the ice core trench; the intention is to process only minimally in the field.

In addition, the first planning workshop for the project is planned for Tuesday, March 19, Friday, February 22, 2013 at the Millennium Harvest House in Boulder, CO. The purpose of the workshop is to give scientists interested in participating in the South Pole Ice Core project an opportunity to discuss site selection, science goals, and analytical measurements, as well as an opportunity to coordinate the submission of science proposals (to analyze the ice) in June April, 2013. The intention is to have web-conferencing capability for the workshop so that people can participate in the workshop remotely, if desired. To help plan for the workshop, please let the PIs know (by sending an email to contact@spicecore.org) if you are interested in participating in the workshop, and if so, if you believe you will attend the workshop in person or via web-conferencing.

For the lastest information about the project, and to subscribe to the project's electronic mailing list, visit: http://spicecore.org

During the 2012-2013 Antarctic field season IDDO will provide support for four projects: (1) the Beardmore Glacier Dynamics project (PIs Conway and Winberry) will use a portable hot water drill to create the shot holes needed for their seismic characterization of the subglacial environment of Beardmore Glacier; (2) the WAIS Divide Replicate Coring project (Severinghaus, PI) will use the DISC Drill and its Replicate Coring System to obtain additional ice samples from intervals of high scientific interest within the existing WAIS Divide deep borehole; (3) the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) project (Hawley, PI) will use the IDDO logging tower to help log the RICE borehole to investigate the internal properties of the ice; and (4) the Taylor Glacier Horizontal Ice Core project (Schaefer, PI; Antarctica New Zealand) will use a hand auger and Sidewinder to obtain several shallow ice cores from Taylor Glacier. In addition, IDDO prepared and deployed five PICO and six SIPRE hand auger kits as well as one Sidewinder kit for use by science teams this field season.

IDDO worked with CH2MHill Polar Servies to extend the GISP2 borehole casing at Summit Station, Greenland. IDDO prepared and shipped a 20-foot long section of 10-inch pipe to be installed by the science techs at Summit. This casing extension will ensure that the borehole entry does not become buried, providing surface access to the borehole for years to come.

Current

• McCall Glacier Ice Cores, Alaska (Nolan)
• Isotope Hydrology at Summit, Greenland (Noone)

Upcoming

• Exploring Ice Patches in Glacier National Park (Kelly)
• WAIS Divide Replicate Ice Core, Antarctica (Severinghaus)
• Taylor Glacier Shallow Cores (Schaefer)

For information about each of these projects, visit: https://icedrill.org/fieldwork

IDDO Engineer Josh Goetz was able to test his newly designed prototype for the next generation of hand auger equipment. While at WAIS Divide for DISC Drill and Replicate Testing operations this season, Josh was able to use the hand auger to drill four holes in firn of varying density and was able to take notes regarding further modification and fine tuning of the prototype. In addition, IDDO contract driller Tanner Kuhl was also able to briefly test a second copy of the prototype on Taylor Glacier in the Dry Valleys region. Josh, using his and Tanner's experience this past season, is modifying the prototypes to improve performance.

IDDO was given permission by NSF to deploy a Badger-Eclipse Drill system to WAIS Divide this season in order to aid in driller training. This training proved extremely valuable, as IDDO contract drillers Elizabeth Morton and Michael Jayred were able to gain critical hands-on experience in the assembly and operation of the Badger-Eclipse system. Together with the help of visiting Danish Drill Engineer Steffen Bo Hansen, they were able to complete a 120-meter borehole just outside of WAIS Divide Camp. This very beneficial training exercise also served as a valuable opportunity to update operations procedures for the Badger-Eclipse system.

The 2011-2012 Antarctic field season has come to a close with numerous IDPO/IDDO-led projects displaying exciting and successful results. P.I. Paul Winberry and his field team were able to obtain over 9 km of high-quality seismic data through their operation of an IDDO Portable Hot Water Drill. Using the same drill, Huw Horgan and his team were able to drill over 280 shot holes in support of P.I. Sridhar Anandakrishnan's WISSARD Surface Geophysics project.

In addition to hot water drilling, science teams throughout Antarctica also utilized six PICO hand augers, three SIPRE augers and two Sidewinder systems.

Current

• WAIS Divide Ice Core, Antarctica (Taylor and Severinghaus)
• Taylor Glacier Ice Cores, Antarctica (Severinghaus)
• Whillans Ice Stream Seismic, Antarctica (Winberry)
• Badger-Eclipse/Hand Auger Field Testing, Antarctica (Bentley)

Upcoming

• McCall Glacier Ice Cores, Alaska (Nolan)
• Isotope Hydrology at Summit, Greenland (Noone)

For information about each of these projects, visit: https://icedrill.org/fieldwork

Using the Blue Ice Drill developed by IDDO, an IDDO contract driller successfully completed drilling for samples dedicated to the study of ancient atmospheric composition. Over 800 meters of high quality, large (9.5-inch diameter) ice core was recovered, bringing the drilling to a successful completion on schedule. The science experiment, led by PI Jeff Severinghaus, provides unique and important evidence of past atmospheric composition.

On December 31, 2011, the drilling of the Antarctic WAIS Divide ice core was successfully completed. The DISC Drill produced excellent quality core over the entire 3,405 m depth, including through the technically challenging warm ice. This significant achievement was the culmination of over a decade of work including the design and construction of the DISC Drill by IDDO and its predecessor ICDS.

The ice core retrieved from the site is anticipated to yield the first high-resolution southern hemisphere record of greenhouse gases and climate comparable to the Greenland records, and will contribute significantly to improved understanding of climate variability over the last 62,000 years. Unlike the Greenland cores, however, the WAIS Divide ice core will also provide a record of carbon dioxide; and that record will have a higher time-resolution during the transition from the last glacial period to the current warm interval than any other existing ice core record.

During the 2011-2012 Antarctic field season IDDO will provide drilling support for three projects: (1) the WAIS Divide Ice Core project (PIs Taylor and Severinghaus) will possibly continue deep coring with the DISC Drill and will also test the new Replicate Coring System; (2) the Taylor Glacier Cores project (Severinghaus, PI) will continue to use the Blue Ice Drill to collect large volume samples of ice from the Taylor Glacier ablation zone for studies of the past atmosphere; and (3) the Whillans Ice Stream project (Winberry, PI) will use a portable hot water drill to create the shot holes for seismic work to investigate the physical conditions at the base of the ice stream.

In addition, several new components, including a split ring collet and new cutters, for the Badger-Eclipse drill have been developed and will be field-tested at WAIS Divide this season. IDDO also plans to field-test two newly-designed 3-inch hand augers during the 2011-2012 Antarctic field season: one at WAIS Divide and on sea ice at McMurdo Station, and the other at Taylor Glacier to see how it performs in ice.

Despite battling bitter winds and cold April temperatures in Greenland, P.I. Rick Forster's Arctic Circle Traverse (ACT) field team successfully drilled and processed over 200 meters of ice core at four traverse sites in Greenland under the leadership of IDDO Lead Driller, Terry Gacke. The cores may yield insights on snow accumulation. Meanwhile, in the center of the ice sheet, the field team for P.I.s David Noone and David Schneider drilled a shallow core array near Summit Station, Greenland using an IDDO PICO 4-inch hand auger system and Sidewinder kit. At Raven Camp on the ice sheet, activity focused on a detection system for ice sheet movement; a 300-meter borehole was drilled and a seismometer successfully deployed in May for P.I. Kent Anderson's Greenland Ice Sheet Monitoring Network (GLISN) project. Under the leadership of IDDO Lead Driller Bella Bergeron, IDDO driller Terry Gacke, IDDO engineer Tanner Kuhl and the GLISN science team utilized the 4-Inch Drill system winch to control descent of the seismometer. In addition, three solar arrays were constructed, surface seismometers buried, wind turbines and GPS antennas erected, and interconnecting cables buried.

The third quarter FY2011 yielded success in science planning, agile drilling for multidisciplinary endeavors and drill development. IDDO successfully completed three field projects in Greenland: Rick Forster's Arctic Circle Traverse project, David Noone and David Schneider's isotope hydrology project, and Kent Anderson's Greenland Ice Sheet Monitoring Network (GLISN) project. See "Highlights" below for more information about these three completed projects. In addition, two field projects are still underway: one in North Greenland with P.I. Bob Hawley and one on McCall Glacier, Alaska with P.I. Matt Nolan. IDPO sponsored the Ice Drilling Science Community Planning Workshop in Herndon, VA, which enabled new scientific collaborations and plans for future interdisciplinary drilling projects, including ideas for clean agile drilling systems, development of rapid access drilling, and modular hot water drilling. The Long Range Science Plan and Long Range Drilling Technology Plan were updated. Several high-visibility educational outreach events to feature scientists from the ice coring and drilling community were planned, and work began on a revised Education and Outreach vision for the revised IDPO/IDDO Strategic Plan. Critical issues facing IDDO include repair and updating of the DISC Drill and the development and preparation of the DISC Drill Replicate Coring System for testing at WAIS Divide during the 2011-2012 field season. Problems with the DISC motor control boards and other repairs are expected to cost more than planned, and the diversion of resources from the Replicate System has impacted the schedule and, to a lesser extent, the cost of the Replicate Coring System. IDDO believes, however, that the projects will be completed as scheduled and within the total budget for the two projects combined.

During the 2011 Arctic field season IDDO is providing drilling support to five projects: (1) the Greenland Snow Accumulation project (Forster, PI) will continue to use the 4-Inch Drill to collect shallow ice cores to investigate snow accumulation in the south-eastern sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet; (2) the Greenland Near Surface Cores project (Hawley, PI) will continue to use a hand auger to investigate the physical properties and the state of snow and firn along a traverse from Thule to Summit Greenland; (3) the McCall Glacier Cores project (Nolan, PI) will use a hand auger and Sidewinder to collect firn cores from McCall Glacier in the eastern Brooks Range of Alaska to better understand the processes of internal accumulation of ice within firn; (4) the Summit Shallow Core Array project (Noone, PI) will use a hand auger and Sidewinder to collect high-resolution firn cores to help investigate the stable isotopic hydrology at Summit Greenland; and (5) the Greenland Seismic Array project (Anderson, PI) will use the 4-Inch Drill to drill a borehole to house a seismometer for the GreenLand Ice Sheet monitoring Network (GLISN).

The new Blue Ice Drill, designed and built for the University of California - San Diego with ARRA funding from NSF-OPP, was deployed to the field for the first time in Taylor Valley, Antarctica with resounding success. The drill design proved very effective for collecting large volumes of ice in a short period of time. Over 600 meters of high quality, large (9.5-inch diameter) ice core was recovered and at a faster rate than anticipated. The large quantity of high quality core, which is needed to effectively measure rate gases, was melted and analyzed on site. The science experiment, led by PI Jeff Severinghaus, provides unique and important evidence of past atmospheric composition. The Blue Ice Drill will be used again in 2011-2012 for the second field season of the project.

On January 28, 2011, the DISC Drill reached its much-anticipated bottom depth of 3,331 meters at WAIS Divide, Antarctica. Despite a field season fraught with challenges, the drill crew surpassed previous depth records set at Dome Fuji, Dome C and GISP-2. On January 17, 2011, the WAIS Divide core became the deepest U.S. ice core ever drilled, surpassing the GISP-2 depth of 3,056 meters! For more information about the field season, visit: http://waisdivide.unh.edu/news/index.shtml

The second quarter FY2011 yielded success on many fronts for IDPO and IDDO. Of particular note is the reaching of the drilling goal of 3,331 meters using the DISC Drill at WAIS Divide, Antarctica, becoming the deepest U.S. ice core ever drilled. The newly-developed Blue Ice Drill achieved and surpassed its design requirements at Taylor Valley, Antarctica for drilling large volumes of ice in a short amount of time; over 600 meters of high quality, large (9.5-inch diameter) ice core was recovered at a rate faster than anticipated. IDPO worked with the community and with IDDO to discuss implications of the science requirements for the future intermediate depth drill design, cost estimates, and potential collaborations. The most critical issues currently facing IDDO are the repair and updating of the DISC Drill after the 2010-2011 WAIS Divide field season and the development of the DISC Drill Replicate Coring System, which is scheduled for testing at WAIS Divide during the 2011-2012 Antarctic field season.

A variety of Antarctic field projects were launched this austral field season, including the final season of deep drilling the main core at the WAIS Divide site, and shallow drilling endeavors at Allan Hills, WAIS, Taylor Glacier, and access through the ice at Lake Vida.

WAIS Divide Ice Core - Deep
Despite problems with noisy control boards and fluid leakage into the sonde, good progress was made. The DISC Drill continued to produce ice cores of excellent core quality and on January 28, 2010 the season's depth goal of 3,330 meters was successfully reached.

Allan Hills Coring
Coring was successfully completed by driller Mike Waszkiewicz, with holes of 229 and 129 meters providing all the ice that PI Andrei Kurbatov needed.

WAIS Shallow Cores
Coring was successfully completed by driller Lou Albershardt, with three ice cores drilled (59, 112, and 62 meters) at three sites on the Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers.

Taylor Glacier
Despite broken gearboxes early in season, PI Jeff Severinghaus reported that drillers Tanner Kuhl and Robb Kulin produced core with the newly designed Blue Ice Drill twice as fast as specified in the science requirements. In addition, the science goal of producing 7000 kg of ice with the drill was achieved.

Lake Vida Access
Driller Jay Kyne used the Prairie Dog Drill to complete holes to 27 and 20.5 meters depth in ice thicker and dirtier than expected by PI Peter Doran. The drill was stuck in the second hole and, after discussions between RPSC and NSF, abandoned to avoid any potential environmental damage in recovery.

During the 2010-2011 Antarctic field season IDDO will provide drilling support for five projects: (1) the WAIS Divide Ice Core project (Taylor, PI) will continue deep ice coring with the DISC Drill; (2) the Allan Hills Cores project (Kurbatov, PI) will use the Badger-Eclipse Drill to drill several shallow and 100-meter-long ice cores to compare the Eemian climate record of Allan Hills with that of Mt. Moulton, delineate the area's chronostratigraphy, refine meteorite dating for existing collected meteorites, and establish a framework for an "International Climate Park" in the Allan Hills; (3) the WAIS Shallow Cores project (Joughin, PI) will use the Badger-Eclipse Drill to collect shallow ice cores for surface-based ice-core measurements of accumulation and ground-truthing against airborne accumulation radar profiles; (4) the Taylor Glacier Cores project (Severinghaus, PI) will use the Blue Ice Drill to obtain large volume samples of ice from the Taylor Glacier ablation zone for studies of the past atmosphere; and (5) the Lake Vida Access project (Doran, PI) will use a 4-inch hand auger, a Sidewinder hand auger power system, and the Prairie Dog drill to drill an access hole in the ice cover for subsequent geochemical and biological sampling. For more information about each project, visit https://icedrill.org/fieldwork.

IDDO completed five field projects in Greenland: the Greenland Snow Accumulation Project (Rick Forster, PI), the Humboldt and Tunu Core Update Project (Joe McConnell, PI), the Greenland Near-Surface Core Project (Bob Hawley, PI), the CRREL Summit Firn Air Cooling Study (Maggie Knuth, PI), and the NOAA Summit Firn Air Sampling Borehole Project (Butler, PI) - the core from which was saved for Joe McConnell. All projects were deemed successful, although only one abbreviated core was retrieved on the Humboldt and Tunu Core Update Project because of bad weather, aircraft delays, and the erupting Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland. Equipment for the Greenland Snow Accumulation Project was inadequately prepared before leaving Madison; IDDO is addressing the issue by organizational changes designed to provide additional quality control on all equipment used in the field.

Agile drill field projects in Antarctica during January-March included coring on the Amundsen Coast (hand auger plus sidewinder) and Taylor Glacier (hand auger plus sidewinder), and the conclusion of a successful season for the Amundsen Basin seismic project (RAM Drill). While all these field projects were a success, the PIs gave helpful feedback to IDPO and IDDO will continue to develop its drill management procedures to better maintain, repair, and provide science support for all types of drills.

The WAIS Divide Ice Core Project had a successful season with 1,050 meters of high-quality core retrieved and drilling progressing to a total depth of 2,564 meters, only 36 m short of the season's goal in spite of more than a week of delay getting into the site. The problem with hole inclination was corrected in the field, and the drillers were able to reduce inclination from just over 5 degrees to approximately 4 degrees. The new thin kerf core barrel increased core lengths per run from ~2.7 m to 3.3 m.

More information about these projects can be viewed at: https://icedrill.org/fieldwork