Provision of Ice Drilling Design and Operation Group (IDDOG)

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Bentley/0841135This award supports the University of Wisconsin - Madison Space Science and Engineering Center's Ice Coring and Drilling Services (ICDS) to act as the new Ice Drilling Design and Operations Group (IDDOG) in response to NSF Program Solicitation 08-555. In fulfilling its IDDOG activities, ICDS will work with and directly respond to oversight from the new Scientific Drilling Support Office (SDSO), which is being formed by a separate award (0841225) to provide scientific leadership and oversight of ice coring and drilling activities funded by NSF. IDDOG drilling activities enable scientists to obtain samples of ice from polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers throughout the world which, when studied, result in a clearer understanding of past climate and its variations. Ice cores provide the most comprehensive datasets available for paleoclimatological research and the intellectual merit of IDDOG activities resides in enabling this research to take place. In the next five years IDDOG will complete the initial objectives of the WAIS Divide Ice Core Project by drilling to the bed. IDDOG will also continue supporting smaller unique drilling projects, each usually in association with one or two NSF-funded Principal Investigators. ICDS maintains a suite of augers, drills, and coring equipment with experienced operators to support this type of project work. Looking to the future, IDDOG will work under the direction of the SDSO to develop new techniques and drilling systems as the need arises and funding is identified. Likely possibilities include: devices for collecting samples of the subglacial material; methods to take additional samples of ice through depth ranges of particular paleoclimatological interest -- most likely by deviation drilling off the main borehole, but possibly by drilling a new hole; an intermediate-depth drill for drilling to the order of 1000 m under a fluid, and one or more types of rapid access drills, for investigating the basal interface of ice sheets, the nature of the underlying material, and, where the ice is afloat, the characteristics of the water column and lake- or ocean-bottom sediments below. The broader impacts of this work relate to the personnel who will be involved in this effort. During the WAIS Divide project IDDOG will attempt to recruit several new people each season to expand the pool of trained drillers. Core handlers hired by the WAIS Divide Science Coordination Office, many of whom are graduate students working on ice core analysis projects, will continue to be given opportunities to work with the DISC drill. Two of the four IDDOG front-line drillers for the small projects are women, as are two of the drillers expected to work at WAIS Divide in 2008-09. The great strength of the IDDOG activity resides in the extensive drilling equipment and drilling expertise it will supply in support of glaciological and climatic research; for example, glaciologists expect extensive, critically important paleoclimatic information to come from the WAIS Divide deep core. The results of the drilling work are disseminated principally through the glaciological and climatic research they support. Drilling technology is shared through occasional international workshops and regularly through personal contacts, including international exchange of personnel. Members of ICDS have participated in outreach activities such as the NSF-supported Polar Palooza program through appearance in videos and in person as part of their traveling show on polar climate change; such participation will continue. Another major contribution to broader impacts will arise in collaboration with the SDSO, since one of the SDSO's primary activities will be to enhance communication and information exchange related to ice core drilling technology as a service to the glaciological community and the general public. This activity will include the implementation of a common website that describes current ice drilling capabilities, with examples of recent activities, as well as detailed conceptual descriptions of future drilling systems. The website will have components designed to be attractive to laypeople as well as technical pages.