Antarctic drilling team is first to bore through hundreds of meters of ice to where ice sheet, ocean and land converge
Wednesday, January 21, 2015 - 18:20
in Earth & Climate
Using a specially designed hot-water drill to cleanly bore through a half mile of ice, a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded team of researchers has become the first ever to reach and sample the "grounding zone," where Antarctic ice, land and sea all converge. Data gathered from samples of sediment taken in the grounding zone will provide clues about the mechanics of ice sheets and their potential effects on sea-level rise.