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David Harwood, Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln (United States)
Fabio Florindo, INGV (Italy)
Tim Naish, Victoria University of Wellington, GNS (New Zealand)
Ross Powell, N. Illinois University (United States)
Richard Levy, Univ. of Nebraska (United States)
Frank Niessen, Alfred Wegener Institute (Germany)
Gerhard Kuhn, Alfred Wegener Institute (Germany)
Alex Pyne, Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand)
Frank Rack, Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln (United States)
Franco Talarico, Univ. of Siena (Italy)
Gary Wilson, Univ. of Otago (New Zealand)
MIS Project Science Team, c/o Univ. of Nebraska (United States)
SMS Project Science Team, c/o Univ. of Nebraska (United States)
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The ANtarctic geological DRILLing Program (ANDRILL), an international collaboration between scientists, drillers, engineers, educators, and technicians from Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the United States working together in the spirit of the 4th International Polar Year (IPY), successfully completed its two inaugural drilling campaigns in 2006 and 2007 (http://www.andrill.org).
The primary objectives of ANDRILL's McMurdo Ice Shelf Project (MIS) and Southern McMurdo Sound Project (SMS) were to recover and examine stratigraphic records of sedimentary rock from the Antarctic continental margin that document key steps in Antarctica's Cenozoic climatic and glacial history, and reveal events in the development of the Transantarctic Mountains and West Antarctic Rift System. The MIS Project successfully recovered a 1284.87 meter-long drillcore record of climate and glacial variability spanning the past ∼14 million years from beneath the McMurdo Ice Shelf. The SMS Project successfully recovered a ∼1138.34 meter-long drillcore record, including an expanded 600 m-thick sedimentary record of the middle Miocene Climatic Optimum.
The drillsites were influenced by three elements of the Antarctic cryosphere system: East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS), Ross Ice Sheet/West Antarctic Ice Sheet/Shelf, and Ross Embayment sea-ice. An excellent chronostratigraphic framework provides age control for the drillcores and the network of seismic lines in the western Ross Sea. The scientific results under development by the more than 100 scientists, students, technicians and educators involved with each project will be vital to SCAR's Antarctic Climate Evolution (ACE) program (www.ace.scar.org) whose objectives are to integrate geological and paleoclimatic data into climate and ice sheet models to constrain estimates of ice volume variability, and terrestrial and marine paleotemperature. ANDRILL's key operational and technological achievements include the two deepest drillholes on the Antarctic continent, one of which was recovered beneath an 85 m-thick ice shelf in nearly 900 meters of water; high-quality rock core with recovery of more than 98%; and the first hydrofracture experiment and associated in-situ stress measurements in Antarctica. In addition, ANDRILL is engaging and training the next generation of Antarctic geoscientists and educators through exciting and collaborative international research and is taking polar science adventure into classrooms and homes through a stimulating and diverse education and outreach program (http://andrill.org/iceberg). New cutting-edge technology, designed to improve core visualization and data management (e.g., Corelyzer, PSICAT; http://www.apple.com/science/profiles/andrill/), was developed and tested in collaboration with ANDRILL scientists, and will be used by other science programs to enhance rock core data capture, integration, and sharing.
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