A low resource subglacial bedrock sampler: The percussive rapid access isotope drill (P-RAID)

Timoney, Ryan; Worrall, Kevin; Firstbrook, David; Harkness, Patrick; Rix, Julius; Ashurst, Daniel; Mulvaney, Robert; Bentley, Michael J.

doi:10.1016/j.coldregions.2020.103113

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Figure 10 shows the estimated bailing time for a 651 m deep hole, with the fluid top at 90 m depth at the start of bailing: at 14 h per day, bailing could be expected to take up to 13 days to empty the borehole. We were committed to emptying the borehole to both satisfy the environmental constraints placed on the project and to access the bedrock in a dry borehole to drill with a percussion rock drill developed by our partners from Glasgow University (Timoney and others, 2020). The rock drill was designed to be deployed in place of the core barrel on the ice core drill to recover sub-glacial sediment.…”

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confidence: 99%

Ice drilling on Skytrain Ice Rise and Sherman Island, Antarctica

et al. 2021

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To understand the long-term climate and glaciological evolution of the ice sheet in the region bordering the Weddell Sea, the British Antarctic Survey has undertaken a series of successful ice core projects drilling to bedrock on Berkner Island, James Ross Island and the Fletcher Promontory. A new project, WACSWAIN, seeks to increase this knowledge by further drilling to bedrock on two further ice rises in this region. In a single-season project, an ice core was recovered to bedrock at 651 m on Skytrain Ice Rise using an ice core drill in a fluid-filled borehole. In a second season, a rapid access drill was used to recover ice chips to 323 m on Sherman Island in a dry borehole, though failing to reach the bedrock which was at an estimated depth of 428 m.

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Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ice drilling on Skytrain Ice Rise and Sherman Island, Antarctica

et al. 2021

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“…We recommend development of drills that can penetrate thicker ice and potentially ice where the bed is thawed. This could be done by modifying existing drill technology (e.g., Timoney et al, 2020;Goodge et al, 2021) or by requiring the development of entirely new drills. Expanding the area of the GrIS available for subglacial drilling would broaden the range of scientific questions that could be addressed regarding GrIS history and the range of possible targets.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drill-site selection for cosmogenic-nuclide exposure dating of the bed of the Greenland Ice Sheet

et al. 2022

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Abstract. Direct observations of the size of the Greenland Ice Sheet during Quaternary interglaciations are sparse yet valuable for testing numerical models of ice-sheet history and sea level contribution. Recent measurements of cosmogenic nuclides in bedrock from beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet collected during past deep-drilling campaigns reveal that the ice sheet was significantly smaller, and perhaps largely absent, sometime during the past 1.1 million years. These discoveries from decades-old basal samples motivate new, targeted sampling for cosmogenic-nuclide analysis beneath the ice sheet. Current drills available for retrieving bed material from the US Ice Drilling Program require < 700 m ice thickness and a frozen bed, while quartz-bearing bedrock lithologies are required for measuring a large suite of cosmogenic nuclides. We find that these and other requirements yield only ∼ 3.4 % of the Greenland Ice Sheet bed as a suitable drilling target using presently available technology. Additional factors related to scientific questions of interest are the following: which areas of the present ice sheet are the most sensitive to warming, where would a retreating ice sheet expose bare ground rather than leave a remnant ice cap, and which areas are most likely to remain frozen bedded throughout glacial cycles and thus best preserve cosmogenic nuclides? Here we identify locations beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet that are best suited for potential future drilling and analysis. These include sites bordering Inglefield Land in northwestern Greenland, near Victoria Fjord and Mylius-Erichsen Land in northern Greenland, and inland from the alpine topography along the ice margin in eastern and northeastern Greenland. Results from cosmogenic-nuclide analysis in new sub-ice bedrock cores from these areas would help to constrain dimensions of the Greenland Ice Sheet in the past.

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Special Drilling Methods in the Polar Regions

Тalalay

2022

Geotechnical and Exploration Drilling in the Polar Regions

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A low resource subglacial bedrock sampler: The percussive rapid access isotope drill (P-RAID)

Cited by 8 publications

References 14 publications

Ice drilling on Skytrain Ice Rise and Sherman Island, Antarctica

Ice drilling on Skytrain Ice Rise and Sherman Island, Antarctica

Drill-site selection for cosmogenic-nuclide exposure dating of the bed of the Greenland Ice Sheet

Special Drilling Methods in the Polar Regions

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