The key aim of the SMS Project is to establish a robust history of past Antarctic ice sheet variation and climate evolution that can be integrated into continental and global records toward a better understanding of East Antarctica’s role in the past, present, and future global system. To achieve this aim, one ~1000 meter-deep drillcore will sample an inferred Miocene (0-17 million years ago) and younger sequence of seismic units that expand into the Victoria Land Basin. A new history of land vegetation and sea-ice cover will feed new data into glacial and climate models.
Science
McMurdo Ice Shelf (MIS) Project
The key aim of the MIS Project is to determine past ice shelf responses to climate forcing, including variability at a range of timescales. To achieve this aim ANDRILL will recover core from beneath the McMurdo Ice Shelf. The primary target for the MIS site is a 1200 meter-thick body of Plio-Pleistocene (0-5 million years ago) glacimarine, terrigenous, volcanic, and biogenic sediment that has accumulated in the Windless Bight region of a flexural moat basin surrounding Ross Island. A single ~1000 meter-deep drillcore will be recovered from approximately 900m of water.
Co-Chief Scientists
Site Survey 2005
The scientists from USA and New Zealand headed out in October of 2005 to find out just where to drill.
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Science Process
Interested in how ANDRILL found where to drill and why? See how the science process takes place in today’s world.
