The Hans Tausen drill: design, performance, further developments and some lessons learned

• Published in: Annals of Glaciology
• Main Authors: Johnsen, Sigfus, Hensen, Steffen Bo, Sheldon, Simon G., Dahl-Jensen, Dorthe, Steffensen, Jorgen P., Augustin, Laurent, Journé, Paul, Alemany, Olivier, Rufli, Henry, Schwander, Jakob, Azuma, Nobuhiko, Motoyama, Hideaki, Popp, Trevor, Talalay, Pavel, Thorsteinsson, Throstur, Wilhelms, Frank, Zagorodnov, Victor
• Other Authors: Laboratoire de glaciologie et géophysique de l'environnement (LGGE), Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble (OSUG), Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP )-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA)-Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB Université de Savoie Université de Chambéry )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP )-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA)-Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB Université de Savoie Université de Chambéry )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2007
• Subjects: [SDU.STU.GL]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Glaciology; Greenland; Peary; Berkner Island; Peary Land; Annals of Glaciology; Antarc*; Antarctica; EPICA; GRIP; Ice cap
• Online Access: https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-00376327; https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-00376327/document; https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-00376327/file/div-class-title-the-hans-tausen-drill-design-performance-further-developments-and-some-lessons-learned-div.pdf; https://doi.org/10.3189/172756407786857686

International audience In the mid-1990s, excellent results from the GRIP and GISP2 deep drilling projects in Greenland opened up funding for continued ice-coring efforts in Antarctica (EPICA) and Greenland (NorthGRIP). The Glaciology Group of the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, was assigned the task of providing drilling capability for these projects, as it had done for the GRIP project. The group decided to further simplify existing deep drill designs for better reliability and ease of handling. The drill design decided upon was successfully tested on Hans Tausen Ice Cap, Peary Land, Greenland, in 1995. The 5.0 m long Hans Tausen (HT) drill was a prototype for the ∼11 m long EPICA and NorthGRIP versions of the drill which were mechanically identical to the HT drill except for a much longer core barrel and chips chamber. These drills could deliver up to 4 m long ice cores after some design improvements had been introduced. The Berkner Island (Antarctica) drill is also an extended HT drill capable of drilling 2 m long cores. The success of the mechanical design of the HT drill is manifested by over 12 km of good-quality ice cores drilled by the HT drill and its derivatives since 1995.