Collaborative Research: Development of a rapid access ice drilling (RAID) platform for research in Antarctica

智力优势：PI建议设计和建造一个新的移动的钻井平台，用于南极冰盖。这种新的快速访问冰钻系统（RAID）将能够快速访问深冰（深度达3300米），然后对冰盖床界面和下面的基岩基底进行取芯。RAID将提供一种新的工具，以获得现场测量以及冰，冰川床和岩石的跨学科研究样品。RAID将是移动的，后勤自主，并能够在几天内钻到深冰。一旦形成钻孔，就可以进行井下测井、钻取短冰和岩芯以及其他取样。洞可以保持开放数年，以方便重返。正在设计钻机，以便每个田间季节可以完成几个孔。一旦建成，钻井系统将作为NSF赞助的设施建立。RAID将提供跨学科能力，研究岩石圈组成、热流、冰盖动力学、过去150万年的气候历史和大气温室气体组成、古温度测量、嗜极生物和粒子物理。RAID将使科学家能够解决有关南极冰盖和下面基底之间深层界面的关键问题，并解决许多未知问题。这与南极冰盖在气候变化中的总体稳定性有关。一旦开发出来，RAID将有助于培训学生进行科学的钻井作业。

Intellectual Merit: The PIs propose to design and build a new mobile drilling platform for use on Antarctic ice sheets. This new Rapid Access Ice Drilling system (RAID) will enable rapid access to deep ice (up to 3300 m depth), followed by coring of the ice-sheet bed interface and bedrock substrate below. RAID will provide a new tool to obtain in situ measurements as well as samples of ice, glacial bed, and rock for interdisciplinary studies. RAID will be mobile, logistically autonomous, and capable of drilling to deep ice within a few days. Once a borehole is created, down-hole logging, drilling of short ice and rock cores, and other sampling can follow. Holes can be kept open for several years to facilitate re-entry. The drill is being designed so that several holes may be completed per field season. Once built, the drilling system will be established as an NSF-sponsored facility. RAID will provide an interdisciplinary capability to study lithospheric composition, heat flow, ice-sheet dynamics, climate history and atmospheric greenhouse gas composition over the past 1.5 million years, paleothermometry, extremophile organisms, and particle physics.Broader impacts: RAID will enable scientists to address critical questions about the deep interface between the Antarctic ice sheets and the substrate below and address many of the unknowns associated with general stability of the Antarctic ice sheets in the face of changing climate. Once developed, RAID will help train students in scientific drilling operations.