EPICA technical details
Dome C:
The 2001/2002 field season at Dome Concordia's ice core drilling camp started mid of November 2001. At the turn of the year, a depth of 2000 metres has been reached. On January 27th, 2002, a depth of 2782 m was reached, corresponding to an estimated ice age of more than 420 000 years. This means that the EPICA's Dome Concordia core is now older than the Vostok ice cores. As Dr. Eric Wolff, Chief scientist at Dome C, wrote in his last field report, this the oldest ice core ever retrieved by retrieved by home sapiens. At the end of the 2002/03 seaon a depth of 32001 Metres was reached. In the 2004/05 season, on December 21, 2004 the final drilling depth of 3270 Meters was reached. The drilling stopped 5 Metres above the predicted bottom of the ice sheet or above bedrock, respectively. The age of the oldest recovered ice is estimated to be ca. 900,000 years.
Dronning Maud Land:
The logistics department at AWI is responsible for the Dronning-Maud-Land deep ice core drilling operation. This comprises transport to and within Antarctica using the R.V. Polarstern, snow vehicles and sledges, and operating Kohnen station. The deep ice core drill was developed in the frame of EPICA by University of Copenhagen and previously tested on Greenland within the NGRIP project. The system was then further developed in co-operation with AWI.
During the period 1995-2001, an extensive pre-site survey was carried out in Dronning Maud Land including a comprehensive environmental evaluation. In the field season 2000/2001 the Kohnen station was erected and a 100 meter borehole cased.
The 2001/2002 field season at Kohnen station started on January 4th, 2002 (see newsletters - german only) when the base was opened after the winter period. The first 3 weeks were needed to complete the installations in the drill- and science trench, to put up the drill tower and make the deep ice core drill running. The first piece of ice came to the surface on January 25th.
On January 29th a drilling depth of 178.92 metres was reported by AWI's chief driller Dr. Frank Wilhelms. The following ice core investigations will be conducted: physical properties,stable isotopes of oxygen (18-O) and hydrogen (2-H), isotope measurements (C-13) of gases, trace elements, and numerical modelling. At the end of the 2001/02 season a depth of 450 Metres was reached. Drilling continued during the 2002/03 season (1565 m) and the 2003/04 season, when the drilling reached a depth of 2565 Metres, corresponding to an age of about 220,000 years. In 2004/05 the drilling was interrupted.