ANDRILL (ANtarctic DRILLing Project) is a scientific drilling project in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

gathering information about past periods of global warming and cooling. The project involves scientists from Germany, Italy,

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, and the United States. The project is based at

McMurdo Station McMurdo Station is a United States Antarctic research station on the south tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand-claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It is operated by the United States through the Unit ...

in Antarctica. At two sites in 2006 and 2007, ANDRILL team members drilled through ice, seawater, sediment and rock to a depth over more than and recovered a virtually continuous core record from the present to nearly 20 million years ago.

Work

In studying the cores, ANDRILL scientists from various disciplines are gathering detailed information about past periods of global warming and cooling. A major goal of the project is to significantly improve the understanding of Antarctica's impact on the world's oceans currents and the atmosphere by reconstructing the behavior of Antarctic sea-ice, ice-shelves, glaciers and sea currents over tens of millions of years. When

sea ice Sea ice arises as seawater freezes. Because ice is less dense than water, it floats on the ocean's surface (as does fresh water ice, which has an even lower density). Sea ice covers about 7% of the Earth's surface and about 12% of the world's oce ...

forms, it pushes the salt out, creating a mass of cold, salty, dense water that sinks to the bottom of the ocean, creating deep

ocean current An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of sea water generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences. Depth contours, s ...

s that affect ocean circulation and the distribution of heat worldwide. Initial results imply rapid changes and dramatically different climates at various times on the southernmost continent.Quirin Scheirmeier, "Sediment cores reveal Antarctica's warmer past," ''Nature News'', April 24, 2008. The $30 million project has achieved its operational goal of retrieving a continuous core record of the last 17 million years, filling crucial gaps left by previous drilling projects.Alexandra Witze, "School of Rock," ''Nature'', v.446, no.7132, p. 129, March 8, 2007. Making use of knowledge gained through prior Antarctic drilling projects, ANDRILL employed novel techniques to reach record depths at its two drilling sites. Among the innovations deployed were a hot-water drilling system that allowed for easier ice-boring and a flexible drill pipe that could accommodate tidal oscillations and strong currents. On December 26, 2006, ANDRILL broke the previous record of set in 2000 by the Ocean Drilling Program's drill ship, the

Joides Resolution 295px, Drillship ''JOIDES Resolution'' in 1988 The riserless research vessel ''JOIDES Resolution'' (Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling), often referred to as the JR, is one of the scientific drilling ships used by the Interna ...

. The record-breaking core measured . In 2007, drilling at the Southern McMurdo Sound, ANDRILL scientists recovered another of core. One goal in 2006 was to look at a period of around 3 to 5 million years ago in the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58sedimentologist Sedimentology encompasses the study of modern sediments such as sand, silt, and clay, and the processes that result in their formation (erosion and weathering), transport, deposition and diagenesis. Sedimentologists apply their understanding of mo ...

s identified more than 60 cycles in which ice sheets or

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

s advanced and retreated across McMurdo Sound. ANDRILL - showing features

Geologist David Harwood, who was principal investigator and co-chief scientist of the 2007 season, explained that understanding what happened in the warm period is especially important as Earth's climate continues to warm:

"If we can identify time periods in Antarctica when we had minimal ice and minimal ocean freezing, we can then look at that particular interval of time - and hopefully several examples from those intervals of time — and see how the rest of the world responded. This will provide evidence to confirm or reject a lot of interpretations that have been suggested and linked to Antarctica,"

Virtual Field Trip

The New Zealand online education programme, LEARNZ, conducted a virtual field trip to the Ross Sea drill site in November 2006. In 2007, over 3,500 New Zealand school students joined LEARNZ teacher Darren on this trip. Telephone conferences were held between students and ANDRILL scientists from the drill site and the Crary Laboratory at McMurdo station.

Media coverage

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

's news anchor

Ann Curry Ann Curry (born November 19, 1956) is an American journalist and photojournalist, who has been a reporter for more than 30 years, focused on human suffering in war zones and natural disasters. Curry has reported from the wars in Kosovo, Iraq, S ...

reported from the ANDRILL camp at the U.S. McMurdo Base for a week beginning October 2, 2007. Ann Curry, reporting for a series called "Ends of the Earth," had hoped to tape at the

South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...

, was held up at McMurdo due to severe weather conditions. The weather broke and about 1 a.m. local time on Friday, Nov. 9, Curry and crew finally touched down at the South Pole. It is not unusual for there to be flight delays to South Pole in the early part of the austral summer.

References

External links

ANDRILL
{{DEFAULTSORT:Andrill Science and technology in Antarctica University of Nebraska–Lincoln McMurdo Station 2006 establishments in Antarctica