Interested in how ANDRILL found where to drill and why? See how the science process takes place in today’s world.
The two ANDRILL projects scheduled to be drilled in 2006 and 2007 developed over a long period of discussion, planning, investigating, and obtaining research funding to support both the operational costs to recover the cores and the scientific costs to support the activities of scientists and students.
Planning for ANDRILL began in 2000, near the close of the Cape Roberts Project, which drilled 3 holes between 1995 and 2000. At this time, the scientific community was asked to propose possible drilling targets. The majorit of potential drilling targets were identified in the McMurdo Sound region, an area of poast drilling and arguably, a region with the best-known geological history on the Antarctic margin; Though some key intervals of time are still unknown.
Scientists met in 2001 in Oxford, UK, to discuss the ANDRILL "Science Plan" (Click here to download the Oxford Workshop Report) and endorsed the ANDRILL Science Committee (ASC) to lead the development of the McMurdo Sound Portfolio. Between 2001 and 2005, proponents of drilling targets collected geophysical data to identify the sedimentary sequences to drill.
In 2001, the ANDRILL Science Management Office (SMO) was established at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In 2002, the ANDRILL Operations Management Offiice (OMO) was established within Antarctica New Zealand in Christchurch, New Zealand.
In 2002, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Northern Illinois University wrote a successful proposal to NSF to build a drilling system for ANDRILL, and brought together our international partnership to build this system.
In 2003, scientists from 4 nation proposed a 300+ page propsal to International Antarctic Program managers for five drill sites in the McMurdo Sound region. An International Review Panel evaluated the scientific merits of the proposal and recommended that two projects be scheduled for drilling. As a result of this positive review, operations and logistics leaders of Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and the United States agreed to support ANDRILL science by forming the ANDRILL Operations Management Group (AOMG). Antarctica New Zealand, the ANDRILL Operator, and Webster’s Drilling built the ANDRILL drilling system and camp, which was shipped to Antarctica in early 2006.
In mid-2005, scientific leaders of the ANDRILL program called for applications from the scientific community with interest in ANDRILL. The McMurdo-ANDRILL Science Implementation Committee (M-ASIC) appointed two co-chief scientists to lead each project and selected a team of top scientists and students to study the recovered drill core.
During the period of October-December 2006, and 2007, more than 75 scientists, students, and educators will work in Antarctica or in their home institutions during the drilling period, documenting features of the recovered core. Three months after drilling ends, the science team will meet at the core repository at Florida State University and assess the teams’ progress and plan the next two years of integrated, collaborative study of the new cores.
ANDRILL will be operated during the International Polar Year and plans an ambitious program in Education and Public Outreach to bring polar science content into schools, living rooms, and chambers of policymakers.
