NetNebraska presents the ANDRILL Project, Ross Ice Sheet, Antarctica

Here's another series of videos.  These were produced by netNebraska.org and are an introduction to the ANDRILL project in Antarctica.  

These folks set up fifty tons worth of drill rig, pipe, field station and people on a floating Ice Sheet 20 to 26 feet thick, then go through 900 feet of ocean, before hitting bedrock and starting to drill rock cores.  It is an amazing technical and scientific achievement.

The videos include some beautiful footage of Antarctica; a few excellent cross-section schematics of Glaciers and Ice Sheets; also, various aspects of the research teams preparations and work.  If you've never heard of the ANDRILL project you may be as amazed by the technical achievement as by the scientific opportunity.  These videos also convey the current understanding and research goals for the ANDRILL project.

Antarctica's Climate Secrets:

     Antarctica's Ice on the Move - Antarctica's Climate Secret

     Reading Antarctica's Rock Cores

     Tiny Clues to Antarctica's Past

     Decoding Antarctica's Climate History

     Antarctica Today

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Antarctica's Ice on the Move - Antarctica's Climate Secret

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymxi5wsqtEU

Uploaded on Dec 22, 2010  |  NETnebraska·Antarctica is the iciest place on Earth, but not all of the ice on the continent is the same -- nor is it sitting still. Antarctica has both floating ice and land-based ice. What is the difference between ice sheets, ice shelves and sea ice? How does this ice affect the stratification and circulation of global oceans? How does it affect climate? And why does melting sea ice not raise sea level but melting land-based ice sheets do? For more of Antarctica's Secrets, including teachers' guides, visit http://www.netnebraska.org/ice.

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0:55  -  Excellent schematic cross-section of the various ice/glacier types.

1:30  -  West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide

1:45  -  Kendrick Taylor, Glaciologist - Desert Research Institute

2:00  -  Going into the snowpack.

2:30  -  Ice cord drilling.

3:10  -  Looking into deep time record within the bedrock.

3:25  -  Schematic cross-section animation of glaciers in action.

3:35  -  Tim Naish - Antarctic Research Centre (New Zealand)

3:50  -  Drop stones.

4:15  -  ANDRILL project

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Antarctic Geologic Drilling - About 

http://www.andrill.org/about 

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4:40  -  Using 20-26 foot thick ice shelf to support drill ridge and science station, drilling through the ice sheet' then through a 900 feet of water and then into the bedrock.

4:50  -  The challenges - moving ice sheet, up and down with tides and laterally. 

6:00  -  The ice sheet is seasonal and will melt - more challenges

6:15  -   Alex Pyne - Antarctic Research Centre (New Zealand)

6:20  -  Dealing with a 40 ton drill rig, plus weight of drill pipe... supported with air bags

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Reading Antarctica's Rock Cores - Antarctica's Climate Secrets

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-b8DU_7mZ8

Uploaded on Dec 22, 2010  |  NETnebraskaWhat is "deep time?" Witness ANDRILL coring deep beneath an ice shelf (and sea ice) to recover layers of sediments in rock cores to understand the history and future of Earth's climate. The sediments laid down were a result of glaciers that bulldozed the landscape to deposit layers representing different time periods...getting older as ANDRILL cores deeper. 

But why does ANDRILL seek rock cores instead of ice cores? Antarctica's thick ice cover can only record up to 1 million years of Earth's climate history, while ANDRILL's rock cores can reveal millions of years...to a time when the continent was nearly ice-free. For more of Antarctica's Secrets, including teachers' guides, visit http://www.netnebraska.org/ice.

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0:30  -  How do scientists "read" ANDRILL drill cores.

1:00  -  Antarctica's dry valleys and bands of rocks.

1:30  -  David Harwood - Geologist - University of Nebraska (USA)

1:45  -  Sediment traps.

2:00  -  The rock cores - reading time.

2:15  -  Schematic of drilling process.

2:30  -  Getting a "serial history in time."

2:40  -  In the lab.

3:40  -  Matt Curren - Curator, Antarctic Research Facility, FSU

3:45  -  Reading the rock core.

5:00  -  Ross Powell - Northern Illinois University

5:30  -  Digitizing the rock cores.

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More information:

http://www.andrill.org/arise/

ANDRILL Science:

http://www.andrill.org/static/science.html

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Decoding Antarctica's Climate History - Antarctica's Climate Secrets

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZHRwDHh4B0

Uploaded on Dec 22, 2010  |  NETnebraskaWhat's a normal climate cycle? How do earth systems -- the shape of Earth's orbit, its tilt and wobble, as well as solar heating -- contribute to changes in Antarctica's ice? Why do ANDRILL scientists and climate modelers worry about warming? Using animation and climate models, see how ANDRILL tracks changes in Antarctica's environment through time. Examine a warmer Antarctica with higher greenhouse gases to learn where global climate is heading. For more of Antarctica's Secrets, including teachers' guides, visit http://www.netnebraska.org/ice.

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1:10  -  90% of fresh water resides in Antarctica

1:30  -  Ross Ice Shelf and the ANDRILL project

1:40  -  Tim Naish - Antarctic Research Centre (New Zealand)

Want to understand how this ice sheet (the world's biggest) behaves.

Drill back when atmospheric conditions were warmer than today.

2:00  -  For more than a decades Antarctic ice sheets having been breaking up at an alarming rate.

2:10  -  2002 Larson Ice Shelf, area the size of Rhode Island broke up and disappeared.

2:20  -  A 200 square mile section of Wilkins Ice Shelf began splintering in 2009.

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 FYI

National Snow and Ice Data Center

http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/iceshelves.html

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In the Southern Hemisphere summer of 2002, scientists monitoring daily satellite images of the Antarctic Peninsula watched in amazement as almost the entire Larsen B Ice Shelf splintered and collapsed in just over one month. They had never witnessed such a large area—3,250 square kilometers, or 1,250 square miles—disintegrate so rapidly.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/larsenb.php

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In late February 2008, the Wilkins Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula disintegrated

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WilkinsIceSheet/

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Ice shelf collapse By Bethan Davies

Table 1. Dates of ice shelf collapse

http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/ice-shelves/

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2:50  -  Reed Scherer - ANDRILL - Northern Illinois University (USA)   

Orbital influences impact on Antarctica.

4:00  -  Reading the rock cores in the lab.

4:30  -  Antarctica's dynamic past.

5:15  -  West Antarctic Ice Sheet is sitting in basin below sea level.

6:40  -  We know about greenhouse gases.

6:50  -  What's different now is the speed of change in atmospheric GHG levels.

7:40  -  New Zealand giving supporting evidence for dynamics change in sea levels.

8:45  -  Helps validate climate models.

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Tiny Clues to Antarctica's Past - Antarctica's Climate Secrets

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl75ChKPlj8

Uploaded on Dec 22, 2010  |  NETnebraskaANDRILL's rock cores include many kinds fossils -- some large and easily seen, like shells, and others that are microscopic. The fossils tell how Antarctica's climate has changed through time. And some of the biggest discoveries are due to the smallest organisms, like diatoms and foraminifera, some of which lived only in open oceans -- suggesting that ice shelves have not always been present in this frozen frontier. For more of Antarctica's Secrets, including teachers' guides, visit http://www.netnebraska.org/ice.

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0:45  -  Beneath the ice sheet - what can rock cores tell us about Antarctica.

1:00  -  Describing ANDRILL

1:25  -  Cores reveal changes in climate past.

1:30  -  A look at the watery world beneath the ice sheet.

2:00  -  The rocks a storehouse of information.

2:25  -  Antarctica was once like New Zealand

2:30  -  Marco Taviani - ANDRILL - Institute of Marine Sciences (Italy)

3:30  -  David Harwood - Geologist - University of Nebraska (USA) 

Gleaning information from one-celled diatoms.

4:40  -  Gleaning information from one-celled Foraminifera 

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Antarctica Today - Antarctica's Climate Secret

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7Q0uDsZtS0

Uploaded on Dec 22, 2010  |  NETnebraska
This video examines what Antarctica looks like today -- how thick the ice cover is, what the continent would look like without ice, and how ANDRILL scientists prepare to work in the coldest, driest, windiest place on Earth. Challenged by a continent covered in ice, how can ANDRILL researchers find any clues at all? This unit shows how ANDRILL scientists detect Antarctica's climate history -- by prospecting, surveying and drilling to read Earth's history in sediments and rocks. For more Antarctica's Secrets, including teachers' guides, visit http://www.netnebraska.org/ice.

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Land of Ice

1:00  -  Deciphering the Antarctic climate connection.

2:00  -  Research teams journey from Christchurch, New Zealand.

2:45  -  McMurdo Station - home base for around 1200.

3:50  -  Preparing to go into the frigid field.

4:20  -  The ice cave.

4:35  -  Scuba-diving under the ice.

5:10  -  Setting up the ANDRILL exploratory equipment.

5:30  -  The questions to be studied...