10 DECEMBER 2023 WorldWide Drilling Resource® Ice Core Drilling in Peru Adapted from Information by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Engineers with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center are using ice cores from the glacier of Quelccaya Ice Cap - the largest ice cap in the Peruvian Andes Mountains, to study the area’s past climate. As a member of the U.S. Ice Drilling Program (IDP), Engineer Elliot Moravec is accustomed to working in the extreme environments of Antarctica and Greenland. On this expedition, at an altitude of 18,600 feet, he would face different challenges as it required transporting gear including shelters, fuel, cold weather clothing, and a drill. “In places like Antarctica and Greenland, there is an infrastructure built around science that makes transporting heavy equipment easier with available vehicles, snow machines, and airplanes,” said Moravec. “We didn’t have any of that for this trip, and we couldn’t have done it without the help from the community organizers and porters.” Over the years, glaciers trap particles of air, snow, sea salts, dust, volcanic plumes, and even pollutants from humans - providing a snapshot in time of the climate. Ice cores, much like tree rings, tell a story throughout its deep layers. As the largest ice cap in the area, Quelccaya has been studied since the 1970s and has helped scientists understand the climatology of the Andes Mountains and surrounding regions. IDP drills are specialized tools designed and chosen to meet the conditions and needs of each expedition. For this trip, Moravec operated an electrothermal drill, an ice coring drill that uses heat to burrow through a glacier while retrieving ice cores. The drill consists of more than 30 pieces including motor, generator, gearboxes, and tower assemblies. Once assembled at the peak, drilling was a methodical process with it taking five days until they hit the bedrock 420 feet below. During operations, the drill produces about 13 feet of ice core every hour. Warming daytime temperatures threatened to melt the cores so the crew conducted operations and retrievals at midnight, transporting the cores below base camp to a refrigerated truck. Traversing the dangerous terrain back to camp meant affixing microspikes to their boots to negotiate the jagged and pointed ice formations. The team roped themselves together to avoid falling into any of the deep crevasses. Thunderstorms near the summit were a concern, resulting in the team deploying a lightning rod while drilling. Previous core samples revealed the ice cap to be more than 1400 years old; however, new analytical techniques may allow them to look deeper into the layers to uncover more about the ice cap’s history. As challenging as the ascent, the team’s descent included safely transporting more than 2000 pounds of ice off the summit. From there, the cores were transported using sleds, human power, horses, freezer trucks, and ultimately a ship from Lima to New York City, before finally arriving at an institute in Maine. “The Quelccaya deployment was definitely the most memorable for a lot of reasons,” said Moravec. “I’ve never been to South America, never climbed a mountain, never used a thermal drill before, never transported gear with horses, or worked with a team where there was a language barrier. It was amazing to be with so many people working hard towards a science goal like this.” Moravec is a member of the IDP team, providing ice drilling field support to the National Science Foundation through a cooperative agreement with Dartmouth, University of Wisconsin, and University of New Hampshire. Photos by Mariusz Potocki. ENV Moravec deployed and operated an electrothermal drill for the first time on this project.
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