Ice core drill used by the British Antarctic Survey, 1985

Made:: 1985 in Nebraska

maker:: Polar Ice Core Office

Ice core drill used by the British Antarctic Survey, 1985

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Shallow hand drill used by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) to drill for ice cores in 1985. This head was used at Dolleman Island and later on the Dyer Plateau, both on the Antarctic Peninsula, by Robert Mulvaney and BAS colleagues.

Ice cores are rich in information used by scientists to study Earth’s present and past climate. Tiny air bubbles trapped in the ice provide glimpses of past atmospheric conditions; cores also yield information about average temperatures. This drill could sample cores to depths of about 10 metres—a significant depth since this was generally reported as equivalent to the mean annual temperature of a location. These data was used to build spatial maps of mean annual temperature in locations without automatic year-round weather stations. This drill was used in conjunction with another with a longer barrel that could reach depths of about 25 metres.

Details

Category:: Meteorology

Object Number:: 1998-192

Materials:: glass-reinforced plastic, aluminium, steel

type:: ice core drill

credit:: Donated by British Antarctic Survey

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Parts

Ice corer, used by the British Antarctic Survey, 1985

Drill head for ice corer drill, unsigned, British, 1985. Used by the British Antarctic Survey, for drilling 10-Meter cores, for research into past climates.

This shallow hand drill was used by British Antarctic Survey to dril to depths of around 10 m in ice core investigations in Anterctica. A drill with a longer barrel (2.2 m) was used to go deeper, down to about 25 m. Such drills have been used routinely by a number of nations working in Antarctica, the Arctic and other polar regions. This particular head was first used at Dolleman Island on the Antarctic Peninsula in 1985 and then on the Dyer Plateau (again the Peninsula) by British Antarctic Survey workers, including Dr Robert Mulvaney. This drill was replaced by an upgraded model which looked similar, but the aluminium head had "core-catchers" which made the drill work better. Note, 10 m is a significant glaciological depth. The temperature measured at 10 m is generally reported as equivalent to the mean annual temperature of a location. Glaciologists have been drilling to 10 m for decades to measure temperatures to produce spatial maps of mean annual temperature in areas where there are no automatic year-round weather stations.