New replicate ice core system will target abrupt climate change
events Posted June 29, 2012 Scientists have been extracting ice
cores from Antarctica for the better part of 50 years. But no
one has tried to do what a team of researchers and engineers
propose at the end of this year from a field camp in one of the
snowiest regions of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). “No one
in the world has developed a system to replicate ice cores at
any chosen depth and at any chosen azimuth within an existing
borehole,” said Alex Shturmakov, director of engineering and
research for Ice Drilling Design and Operations (IDDO) at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison . “We are very excited. It’s
always interesting to work on something that nobody ever worked
on before. It is an engineering challenge.” The multiyear WAIS
Divide project recovered an ice core 3,405 meters into the ice
sheet — the deepest ice core ever drilled by an American-based
team. The major drilling operations were completed during the
2010-11 field season,