Scope, Problems, and Potential Value of Deep Core Drilling in Ice Sheets

This report is an attempt to show that the Project on Deep Core Drilling in Ice is of quite exceptionally high geophysical interest, and that it is worth all the support that can be mustered. Planning, funding, and execution of a number of associated field and laboratory projects require more attention by more agencies and individuals than heretofore. The undertaking should be designated as a major scientific effort in U.S. polar research, important to geophysics and of considerable value to the international scientific prestige of the U.S.A. It should naturally come under the auspices o the Office of Antarctic Programs of the National Science Foundation and its advisory Panel on Glaciology, Committee on Polar Research, National Academy of Sciences. USA CRREL, the various institutes doing polar research, and interested individual investigators have much of the necessary technical and scientific capability for execution. A good program would require support for a period of 5 to 10 years at a total cost of perhaps 2 to 4 million dollars.