RAM-2 Drill system development: an upgrade of the Rapid Air Movement Drill

• Published in: Annals of Glaciology
• Main Authors: Christopher Gibson, Grant Boeckmann, Zachary Meulemans, Tanner Kuhl, Jim Koehler, Jay Johnson, Kristina Slawny
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press 2021
• Subjects: compressed air drilling; ice coring; ice engineering; polar firn; Meteorology. Climatology; QC851-999; Greenland; Raven Camp; Annals of Glaciology; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2020.72; https://doaj.org/article/0db76d9d79ba4268b37ea61346d2c80b

Significant upgrades to the Rapid Air Movement (RAM) Drill were developed and tested by the US Ice Drilling Program in 2016 through 2020 for the U.S. National Science Foundation. The design of the system leverages the existing infrastructure of the RAM Drill with the goal of greatly reducing the logistical burden of deploying the drill while maintaining the ability to drill an access hole in firn and ice to 100 m in 40 min or less. In this paper, characteristics of the drill are described, along with a description of the drill performance during the testing at Raven Camp in Greenland and at WAIS Divide Camp in Antarctica.