scholarly journals Drilling operations for the South Pole Ice Core (SPICEcore) project

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay A. Johnson ◽  
Tanner Kuhl ◽  
Grant Boeckmann ◽  
Chris Gibson ◽  
Joshua Jetson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ice Core ◽  
Austral Summer ◽  
South Pole ◽  
The South ◽  
University Of Wisconsin ◽  
Drilling Operations ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Core Project ◽  
The University ◽  
Drill System

Abstract Over the course of the 2014/15 and 2015/16 austral summer seasons, the South Pole Ice Core project recovered a 1751 m deep ice core at the South Pole. This core provided a high-resolution record of paleoclimate conditions in East Antarctica during the Holocene and late Pleistocene. The drilling and core processing were completed using the new US Intermediate Depth Drill system, which was designed and built by the US Ice Drilling Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In this paper, we present and discuss the setup, operation, and performance of the drill system.

scholarly journals A new large-diameter ice-core drill: the Blue Ice Drill

2014 ◽  
Vol 55 (68) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanner W. Kuhl ◽  
Jay A. Johnson ◽  
Alexander J. Shturmakov ◽  
Joshua J. Goetz ◽  
Chris J. Gibson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ice Core ◽  
Large Diameter ◽  
Electrical Power ◽  
Variable Frequency Drive ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Core Recovery ◽  
University Of Wisconsin ◽  
Taylor Glacier ◽  
The University ◽  
Drill System

AbstractThe Blue Ice Drill (BID) is a large-diameter agile drill system designed by the Ice Drilling Design and Operations group of the University of Wisconsin–Madison to quickly core-clean 241 mm diameter ice samples from near-surface sites. It consists of a down-hole motor/gear reducer rotating a coring cutter and core barrel inside an outer barrel for efficient cuttings transport in solid ice. A variable-frequency drive and custom control box regulates electrical power to the drill. Torque reaction is accomplished on the surface via handles attached to a torsion stem. Core recovery is achieved with either core dogs in the sonde or with a separate core recovery tool. All down-hole tools are suspended on a collapsible tripod via ropes running on a capstan winch. The BID is operated by a minimum of two people and has been used successfully during two seasons of coring on a blue ice area of Taylor Glacier, Antarctica. An updated version of the drill system, BID-Deep, has been designed to recover cores to depths up to 200 m.

scholarly journals The 1500 m South Pole ice core: recovering a 40 ka environmental record

2014 ◽  
Vol 55 (68) ◽  
pp. 137-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
K.A. Casey ◽  
T.J. Fudge ◽  
T.A. Neumann ◽  
E.J. Steig ◽  
M.G.P. Cavitte ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Accumulation Rate ◽  
Ice Core ◽  
Austral Summer ◽  
South Pole ◽  
Site Location ◽  
The South ◽  
High Accumulation ◽  
Climate History ◽  
Annual Layer ◽  
Drill Site

AbstractSupported by the US National Science Foundation, a new 1500 m, ∼40 ka old ice core will be recovered from South Pole during the 2014/15 and 2015/16 austral summer seasons using the new US intermediate-depth drill. The combination of low temperatures, relatively high accumulation rates and low impurity concentrations at South Pole will yield detailed records of ice chemistry and trace atmospheric gases. The South Pole ice core will provide a climate history record of a unique area of the East Antarctic plateau that is partly influenced by weather systems that cross the West Antarctic ice sheet. The ice at South Pole flows at ∼ 10ma−1 and the South Pole ice-core site is a significant distance from an ice divide. Therefore, ice recovered at depth originated progressively farther upstream of the coring site. New ground-penetrating radar collected over the drill site location shows no anthropogenic influence over the past ∼50 years or upper 15 m. Depth–age scale modeling results show consistent and plausible annual-layer thicknesses and accumulation rate histories, indicating that no significant stratigraphic disturbances exist in the upper 1500 m near the ice-core drill site.

scholarly journals Design and performance of the first IceAct demonstrator at the South Pole

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (02) ◽  
pp. T02002-T02002
Author(s):  
M.G. Aartsen ◽  
M. Ackermann ◽  
J. Adams ◽  
J.A. Aguilar ◽  
M. Ahlers ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Pole ◽  
The South ◽  
And Performance

scholarly journals Design and performance of the South Pole Acoustic Test Setup

2012 ◽  
Vol 683 ◽  
pp. 78-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Abdou ◽  
K.-H. Becker ◽  
J. Berdermann ◽  
M. Bissok ◽  
C. Bohm ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Pole ◽  
The South ◽  
Test Setup ◽  
And Performance

scholarly journals Modeling ice birefringence and oblique radio wave propagation for neutrino detection at the South Pole

2020 ◽  
Vol 61 (81) ◽  
pp. 84-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. M. Jordan ◽  
D. Z. Besson ◽  
I. Kravchenko ◽  
U. Latif ◽  
B. Madison ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Delays ◽  
Ice Core ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Propagation Model ◽  
Neutrino Interaction ◽  
Crystallographic Axis ◽  
South Pole ◽  
The South ◽  
Range Estimation ◽  
Ice Flow

AbstractThe Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) experiment at the South Pole is designed to detect high-energy neutrinos which, via in-ice interactions, produce coherent radiation at frequencies up to 1000 MHz. Characterization of ice birefringence, and its effect upon wave polarization, is proposed to enable range estimation to a neutrino interaction and hence aid in neutrino energy reconstruction. Using radio transmitter calibration sources, the ARA collaboration recently measured polarization-dependent time delay variations and reported significant time delays for trajectories perpendicular to ice flow, but not parallel. To explain these observations, and assess the capability for range estimation, we use fabric data from the SPICE ice core to model ice birefringence and construct a bounding radio propagation model that predicts polarization time delays. We compare the model with new data from December 2018 and demonstrate that the measurements are consistent with the prevailing horizontal crystallographic axis aligned near-perpendicular to ice flow. The study supports the notion that range estimation can be performed for near flow-perpendicular trajectories, although tighter constraints on fabric orientation are desirable for improving the accuracy of estimates.

scholarly journals δD And δ18O In South Pole Snow: Further Comparison With Meteorological Data and The Record From the Last Millennium (Abstract)

1988 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 208
Author(s):  
J. R. Petit ◽  
J. Jouzel ◽  
J. C. White ◽  
Qian Qiu-yu ◽  
M. Legrand ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Seasonal Variation ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Meteorological Data ◽  
Ice Core ◽  
Snow Accumulation ◽  
South Pole ◽  
The South ◽  
Isotope Record ◽  
Δd And Δ18o ◽  
Isotope Content

The stable-isotope content of precipitation (δD and δ18O) is governed by the successive fractionation processes which occur during the atmospheric water cycle. As a result there is, in polar areas, a well-obeyed and theoretically well-understood linear relationship between the mean istopic content of snow and its mean temperature of formation. This relationship is well documented on a spatial scale but poorly known for a given site on a temporal basis, the main reason being that relatively long-term and sufficiently detailed meteorological data are only available for a few polar sites. The South Pole appears to be a suitable place for such a study because: (i) snow accumulation is high enough (∼20 cm of snow per year), thus reducing the possibility that annual layers will be lost as a result of wind; (ii) seasonal variation in isotope content is still preserved in snow up to 50 years old; (iii) meteorological data are available from the time the station was opened in 1957. Our previous studies of surface and recently deposited snow at the South Pole were very encouraging in this respect; they have been extended with a two-fold purpose: (i) to test the geographical representativity of the isotope record by comparing results from various cores taken within a 10 km radius of the station. The cores are dated by various techniques, such as stratigraphy, seasonal variation in isotopic content, beta-radioactivity fall-out layers, and detection by solid conductivity measurements of the high “spike” which is thought to correspond to the 1815 Tambora eruption; (ii) to discuss the South Pole isotope record over the last 1000 years as recovered from a 127 m deep ice core.

scholarly journals Production drilling at WAIS Divide

2014 ◽  
Vol 55 (68) ◽  
pp. 147-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina R. Slawny ◽  
Jay A. Johnson ◽  
Nicolai B. Mortensen ◽  
Christopher J. Gibson ◽  
Joshua J. Goetz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ice Core ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Austral Summer ◽  
Snow Surface ◽  
Scientific Interest ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Core Drilling ◽  
Core Samples ◽  
Drill Fluid ◽  
Drilling Operations

AbstractThe deep ice-sheet coring (DISC) drill was used for production ice-core drilling at WAIS Divide in Antarctica for six field seasons between 2007 and 2013. Continuous ice-core samples were obtained between the snow surface and 3405 m depth. During the 2012/13 austral summer, the DISC drill’s newly designed replicate ice-coring system was utilized to collect nearly 285m of additional high-quality core samples at depths of high scientific interest. Annual progress graphs are described, as well as milestones achieved over the course of the project. Drilling operations, challenges encountered, drill fluid usage, drilling results, and the drill crew’s experiences with the DISC drill and replicate coring system during production drilling are described and discussed in detail. Core-processing operations are described briefly, as well as the logistical undertaking of the DISC drill’s deployment to Antarctica.

Supplementary material to "Advection (non-climate) impact on the South Pole Ice Core"

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler J. Fudge ◽  
David A. Lilien ◽  
Michelle Koutnik ◽  
Howard Conway ◽  
C. Max Stevens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ice Core ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
South Pole ◽  
The South ◽  
Supplementary Material

The South Pole ice core (SPICEcore) project

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Souney ◽  
Murat Aydin ◽  
Eric Steig ◽  
T. Fudge ◽  
Mark Twickler
Keyword(s):  
Ice Core ◽  
South Pole ◽  
The South

Isotopes of molecular nitrogen, oxygen, and argon in the South Pole ice core document local and global climate change through the last deglaciation.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Morgan ◽  
Christo Buizert ◽  
Jeff Severinghaus
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate ◽  
Molecular Nitrogen ◽  
Ice Core ◽  
South Pole ◽  
Last Deglaciation ◽  
The South ◽  
Temperature Changes ◽  
Temperature Proxy ◽  
Local Surface Temperature ◽  
First Time

<p>Ice core gas records are an invaluable paleoclimatic archive. The three most abundant gases in air, nitrogen (N<sub>2</sub>), oxygen (O<sub>2</sub>), and argon (Ar), provide paleoclimatic information about both global and regional processes including tropical rainfall patterns and local surface temperature changes. We present a large dataset of elemental and isotopic ratios of N<sub>2</sub>, O<sub>2</sub>, and Ar (O<sub>2</sub>/N<sub>2</sub>, Ar/N<sub>2</sub>, δ<sup>15</sup>N, δ<sup>18</sup>O, & δ<sup>40</sup>Ar) from the South Pole Ice Core between 0 – 52,000 yr BP, with a focus on high precision δ<sup>15</sup>N and δ<sup>40</sup>Ar measurements between 5,000 – 32,000 yr BP. The unprecedented precision of our measurements allows us to use δ<sup>15</sup>N<sub>excess </sub>(= δ<sup>15</sup>N - δ<sup>40</sup>Ar/4) to reconstruct past temperature change at the South Pole. Although this proxy has been widely applied in Greenland, this is the first time it has been successfully applied to Antarctic ice and provides a valuable independent check on the more traditional water isotopes temperature proxy. We find good agreement between the two during the relatively stable climate of the glacial period and the Holocene. However the temperature reconstructions diverge during the deglaciation. We present several hypotheses that could explain the discrepancy and look to other emerging ice core temperature proxies to support our interpretation.</p>

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