WEBVTT - Ice Core Drilling 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:12.280 Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from Either 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:15.640 and Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:19.800 joined in the studio once again by my buddy Joe McCormick, 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:25.639 UH co worker, a colleague, co host of Forward Thinking, Uh, 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.560 Poopy Food. How you doing, Joe? I'm great, Hi everybody. 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:33.479 So Joe you you know I always like to ask 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:37.080 my potential co hosts what they would like to cover 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.320 in any given episode. And Joe, you had a really 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:43.239 interesting idea that that honestly had not occurred to me 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:45.600 to cover before. Well, I didn't know if we would 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:48.160 make a good episode, and I guess at this moment 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:50.320 I still don't know, but I guess we will. In 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:54.480 exactly we'll figure it out. But it was an idea 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:58.240 that came to me because I like to think about 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:03.160 ancient time times. So when I come on other shows, 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:05.360 I like to be able to look to the past sometimes. 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.920 So Jonathan, I want to talk to you about Lake Vostock. 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:13.560 All right, So what is Lake Vostock. You've never heard 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:17.080 of it. I know Lake Lanier. Is it near Lake Lanier? 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.760 It's pretty close. No, it's a lake in Antarctica. But 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:24.280 it's not just any kind of lake. It's a sub 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:28.920 glacial lake, the biggest one in the world actually. So 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:32.360 it is a lake that is under a glacier, a 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:36.160 giant sheet of ice, and that glacier is really thick. 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:40.279 I've seen estimates from about two miles thick to about 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:43.400 four thousand meters of glacial ice over the lake, which 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:45.040 would be like two and a half miles. I guess 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.800 they're probably different segments where the ice is a different thickness. 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:53.080 And it's been buried in ice for millions of years, 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:57.600 all right. So in recent decades, scientists have been drilling 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:01.240 samples of the ice above this lake to study what's 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.200 down there. Um. And whenever I picture this lake in 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:07.320 my mind, this lake buried under ancient ice, it makes 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.040 me think of Gollum's Lake under the mountain in the 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:13.480 Hobbit in the mountains, Yeah, misty mountains. That What did 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:15.040 the lake have a name or was it just where 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.200 the yummy fishes. I don't think it had a specific name. 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:20.119 If it did, it would have been a Goblin name. 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.200 So I would be, you know, unpronounceable for the mere 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:25.560 mortal that I am. Oh, I assume you speak Goblin. 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:29.040 I know grish Nacht is fire. That's the only thing 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:31.240 I can I can rattle off off the top of 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:36.000 my head. Well, anyway, when scientists drill down into this deep, 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:40.240 deep Antarctic Golem lake below the ice, one of the 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:44.400 craziest things is that they've found d n A and 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:49.799 evidence of microbial life. And I remember there were stories 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:52.720 about how some ice samples indicated there might even be 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:58.200 more complex life like fish and arthropods in that water. Um. Now, 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:00.640 I know that was highly controversial at the time. I 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.880 just recently looked it up again to see if there 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:05.600 were there were any developments on that. I found a 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:08.120 piece of coverage from Nature News at the time throwing 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.640 some serious doubts on the on the live fish and 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.880 arthropods claim. So that's I'm sure not all that widely accepted, 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.320 but just the idea of it is so cool that 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:25.400 you have this completely sealed off ancient alien life in 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:29.280 this lake below a mountain of ice, and things like 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:32.959 that make me think about deep time, like how ice 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:38.600 is a cross section of geological time on Earth right, 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:42.640 like that there is layer upon layer of evidence of 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.200 what has happened in the past. Yeah, and and just 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.520 in case people are curious, like, how could a subglacial 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:50.680 lake remain Why would you call that a lake? Why 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:52.520 would that not just be another part of the glacier. 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:57.240 Why wouldn't that just be ice. Geothermal heat actually counteracts 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.160 the freezing action of the ice above it all in 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.760 the lake to remain liquid. Oh I actually didn't know 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.720 why it was liquid. Oh yeah, it's because of geothermal 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:09.680 geothermal vents that continue to keep the temperature of the 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:15.040 lake above freezing. So yeah, that's why, uh, there can 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:17.320 be a lake, a sub glacial lake, because otherwise you 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:19.040 would say, like, well, wait a minute, how could it 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:23.000 still remain How could it remain unfrozen unless there were 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:27.440 some other chemicals in the lake that would uh lower 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:32.760 its freezing point below that of water. That's fascinating. Yeah, well, okay, 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:34.880 you might be wondering, wait a minute, what does this 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:37.719 have to do with technology. Well, we're getting get there 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:41.840 in just a second. So when you think about glaciers, 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:45.120 I guess at the polar regions, how do things like 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:49.600 that form. It's actually a pretty simple process. Every year 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:54.920 it snows, it'll it'll snow, and you get heavier snows 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:57.440 in the winter and lighter snows in the summer, right, 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:01.080 But in some places in the world, unlike probably wherever 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:03.520 you live, if it snows around your house or your yard, 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:05.680 eventually that snow melts, right, right, you get to a 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.920 point where the season's warm, the snow starts to uh 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.279 to to melt away, and then eventually you have no 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:14.960 more snow. But there's some regions where either the snow 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.120 accumulation is so great that it never completely melts, or 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:22.080 the temperature never rises above freezing and therefore it just 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:26.360 continues to accumulate. So every season you get a new 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:29.320 layer of snow. Right. What happens when a new layer 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.160 of snow goes on top of the old layer of snow, Well, 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:35.560 eventually it gets kind of heavy. Yeah, it compresses into 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:38.720 the point where the lower layers of snow are compressed 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:42.360 into ice. So then you get layers of ice. And 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:46.080 if you were able to look at these layers of 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:49.760 ice collectively, you can start to draw some conclusions about 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:53.640 what had happened the years when that snow first accumulated. 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:58.160 And this is what leads us to the practice of 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:03.760 drilling down into ice sheets and glaciers to retrieve samples, 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:06.640 to kind of get a look back into the geological 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:10.200 past of the Earth. Yeah, exactly. So, ice core drilling 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:14.440 is a way of getting at this cross section of 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:19.239 geological time that we can see in the ice layers 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:21.640 of glaciers, right, and a lot of it's going to 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.280 be you know, in places like Greenland or in Antarctica. 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:29.239 Those are the two chief sites for ice core drilling, 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.960 where people have to come up with these huge vertical 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:38.680 samples of ice that might be miles thick, right, And 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.159 what I wanted to know was, how on Earth do 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:43.920 they do that? It can't be all that easy, can 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:48.360 it is? It's well easy, It is not simple. It 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.479 is similar than I would have expected. Actually it is. 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.039 It is a simple method in the sense that it 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:59.560 doesn't require tons of complex machinery or techniques. But it 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:03.599 is not easy to do because it is difficult to 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:08.320 reach to access the areas, and the methodology can often 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:12.280 require people to essentially live on an ice sheet for 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:14.480 a very for you know, like like a month at 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:19.120 a time, depending on how deep they want to drill. Right. So, uh, 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:21.800 within each of those layers of snow that have turned 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:25.400 into ice, there are records of things of the past, 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:29.320 like the you know, ice can trap chemicals. For example, 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:33.880 precipitation can trap chemicals, and as that precipitation in this case, 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:36.680 snow hits the ground, then you have a record of 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.800 what the chemical composition was at that given time, and 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:43.560 then other layers will pack on top of it and 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:46.960 they will have their own kind of, you know, unique 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:50.640 chemical fingerprint if you will. The layers don't just show 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:53.800 you a cross section of time. Each layer has data 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:56.520 from the time it comes from. It might even have 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.920 like ash from a volcanic eruption. You can see kim 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:02.800 iCal data like you were just talking about the concentrations 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:05.600 of different gases in the atmosphere that become dissolved in 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:10.560 little bubbles in these layers, or you can see exactly 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:14.520 ash from volcanic eruptions. You can even discern things about 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:18.200 the local weather patterns where the glacier was at certain 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.120 times in the past, and you can see like there 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:23.840 was heavy snowfall this year and light snowfall the next year, 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:26.520 and we'll talk more about that, get more into detail 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:28.200 and a little bit. Another thing that I think is 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.560 kind of cool with the volcanic ash layers is that 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:35.360 it lets you compare one sample against another sample that 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.280 was gathered somewhere else and not necessarily justin ice. There 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:42.560 are other core uh coreing methods like that, going through 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:46.360 peat bogs, for example, And if you find a layer 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:48.920 of ash that corresponds to another layer of ash and 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:50.880 a completely different sample, you can say, oh, well, these 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.160 both came from that same eruption. That allows us to 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:57.760 to corus correlate these two dates together by the chemical 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:00.280 composition of the ash and the two layers, because the 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.559 chemical composition is going to be unique each eruption. So 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.199 that way you can actually start to build a global 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.960 view of what had happened during any given you know, 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.440 uh year or span of years in Earth's past, which 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:16.320 is really interesting. I think, Yeah, it's way cooler and 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:19.280 more full of creepy ancient power than you would have 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.200 imagined ice drilling to be. But I want to hear 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.120 about the drilling itself. How do they get these cores 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:28.640 out of the glacier? Okay, well, there are two basic 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:33.520 categories of drills, and then there are are of you know, 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:37.040 different examples of each category. So the first big one 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:41.319 are mechanical drills. Now, these are drills that drilled down 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:45.920 into the ice through mechanical action essentially rotating. Right, But normally, 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:48.480 when you think of a drill that's making a hole 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:53.440 in something, you are not removing any section of that 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.720 substrate intact. You're just making a hole. I'm drilling in 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.240 the wall. Well, it's gonna be this sort of like 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:04.480 you know, cylindrical object that's got screw thread kind of 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.040 things on the outside to move the shavings out of 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:09.040 the hole as it goes deeper in. It's just a 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:11.560 solid shaft. Yeah, it's not gonna give you a cross 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:14.000 section of the wood. So how do you get that? 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:15.720 So in order to do that, you have to have 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:19.760 a drill bit that is an actual hollow cylinder right 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:23.320 the middle of this. Instead of it being a solid shaft, 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.360 it's a cylinder that has cutting teeth on one end 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:29.760 of it, so that when it rotates, it creates this 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:35.320 the the the actual drill itself rotates around a column 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.599 of ice, It creates a column of ice cuts away 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.040 so that you know the center of the drill bit 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:45.040 starts to accumulate this ice. It goes straight down until 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:48.840 you get to the length of the drill itself, and 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.640 obviously then you can't go any further because you hit 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:53.800 the cap like the top of the drill, and that's 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:55.800 where you would have to stop and try and retrieve 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.600 the ice that you've just drilled. Right, So you might 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.600 think about it kind of like this. Imagine like a 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.839 tin can or like a pipe, and then the lip 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:09.000 of that pipe is sort of like a circular saw blade. 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.719 It's got the blade is parallel to the length of 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.560 the pipe obviously, so it can screw down in right. 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:19.480 And it's also the teeth are usually adjustable, like you 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.920 can either uh extend them or attract them a little 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:25.760 bit depending upon the nature of the ice that you're 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:30.599 cutting into. So, for example, if they are if the 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.720 if the teeth are retracted too far, it's gonna be 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:35.840 really hard to get purchase on the ice. It's gonna 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:39.400 kind of skitter around. Anyone who's had any experience with 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:41.480 ice nos it's slippery, and so you'd have to have 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:43.960 the teeth be a little bit longer. If they're too long, 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:47.800 then they're going to get caught in the ice, so 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:51.360 it'll make it more difficult to turn the drill and 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:53.679 drill down into the ice. So you have to find 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.760 that that sweet spot, and that's usually why the the 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:00.079 teeth are adjustable so that you can make it the 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:04.080 perfect length for whatever conditions you encounter. You when you 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:06.320 turn the drill the proper way, it cuts into the 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:08.840 ice and it and it pulls in that cylinder like 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:12.240 we were talking about. Now, there's also gonna be some 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.200 waste product from this drilling in there. Yeah, chips of 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:19.720 ice obviously are going to accumulate. So often these drills 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.160 have treads on the outside of them which will put 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.160 push chips up to the surface. Some of them have 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.800 chambers that will hold chips to keep it away from 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:33.400 the ice core sample because obviously, if you're looking at 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:36.679 at creating a sample for you to study in the lab, 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:40.719 you don't want to end up mixing that material all up, 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.760 because then you don't have an accurate representation of what 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.719 happened over any given length of time. Right, You've you've 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:50.640 corrupted your sample. So most of these have a method 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:56.160 of funneling chips up into a chamber. Uh, and you 0:12:56.200 --> 0:13:00.280 are the The simplest of these mechanical drills are the 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:05.240 hand powered augers. You actually move these by hand. It 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:09.080 it looks like a kind of like a very long can, 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:12.280 right and the top of it has like a t 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.920 junction handle and like in cartoons when people have a 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.199 dynamite box and they push it in the right handle 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:20.360 like that or like a jackhammer, you know that kind 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:22.360 of thing. And except of course, instead of going up 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.600 and down, you're twisting this in order to create the 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:29.320 rotational force. This translated into lateral force because the drill 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.200 is kind of like a the inversion of a screw, right, 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.600 so you're you're drilling down that way. And you might think, well, 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.439 you were talking earlier about how some of the UM 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:43.240 the core samples. We look at our our kilometers long. 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:47.920 How could you possibly get a sample that's that long 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:52.720 using a handogger? Well, first of all, you can't, but secondly, uh, 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:55.240 when we talk about these core samples, Yeah, the entire 0:13:55.320 --> 0:14:00.560 sample might be several kilometers long, but that made up 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:04.640 of segments. So depending upon the drill you're using, your 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:08.079 segments maybe between one and six ms long, right, So 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.760 that's between like, uh, you know, around three ft two 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:16.840 around twenty ft long roughly, um And in order for 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:20.960 you to create a full uh core sample, than what 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:24.080 you would have to do is lower the drill back 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:27.560 down into the borehole that you've started until it reaches 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:31.040 the bottom and you have to use extenders to come 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:33.320 up out of the borehole so you can continue to 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:37.600 drill downward. That sounds like you pretty quickly reach a 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:41.520 sort of maximum depth for these hand operated versions. You 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:45.040 absolutely do, yeah, because eventually you're not going to the 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.080 the amount of rotational force you'll have to create to 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:51.720 rotate the entire thing, the the drill and all the 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:56.320 extenders will exceed the strength and flexibility of that device, 0:14:56.400 --> 0:15:00.400 So you can't you can't indefinitely use a hand dogger. 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.160 It would also just seem to be that that combined 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:05.080 with whatever you have to hang it on to get 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.720 it deeper and deeper, would get really heavy. Yeah. Yeah, 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.200 you know, you keep in mind like you're talking about 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.760 lifting up six meters of ice. Uh, And of course 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.000 the diameter of this depends upon the drill to write 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:20.080 the drill. The drills diameter will determine the diameter of 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.040 the core sample. But you're still talking about lifting all 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:25.520 that ice, which is heavy lifting the drill itself, which 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:27.600 is heavy lifting all the extenders which are heavy. So 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:29.720 eventually you get to a point where you know you're 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:33.800 just not gonna have the integrity to keep that all together, 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.520 which is when you need to look at possibly switching 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:41.360 to something else. So your typical handoggers can go pretty 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:43.960 darn deep. I mean we're talking twenty to thirty meters, 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:47.600 that's like sixty six to ft. That's deeper than I 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:50.240 would have expected. Yeah, me too, And according to some 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:52.600 of the things I read, it's more like fortys is 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.080 the maximum. Twenty to thirty tends to be what people 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:57.760 limit themselves to, but I think the record was somewhere 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:02.080 around forty, so it's even further other than that. Um 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:04.520 So what do you do when you reach that that 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:07.600 limit where you can't use the handoggers anymore? Well, that's 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:12.040 when you try try kind of. You're using the electro 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:15.720 mechanical drills. These are suspended on a cable, so instead 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:20.760 of it having like a physical um turning mechanism that 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.520 extends all the way up to the surface there, they 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.840 they are actually suspended by cable lowered into a borehole 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:31.560 and they consist typically of two barrels. You have an 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:36.560 external barrel that remains uh motionless, it is, it does 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:40.960 not turn all right, So the external barrel is uh, 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:45.640 just a stationary holding device. Then the inner barrel is 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:49.840 the one that can rotate, all right, So the cable 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:54.400 that suspends an electro mechanical drill, the cable doesn't move 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.840 at all either. It's just there to supply the suspension 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:00.760 mechanism and the power. So it's it's got the power 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:04.080 lines that go down to power the drill. The inner 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:08.240 barrel will rotate in the proper direction to continue drilling down. 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:12.000 And the inner barrel also has treads on the external 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:14.479 side of it, right, so those are going to be 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:18.119 like the threads on your your drill bit that are 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.240 getting the shavings out of the wall, and the excase, 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.119 they're transporting the ice chips up along the length of 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:26.480 the drill. That's right. And so you would use this 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:29.680 the same way you would use your handogger, except of course, 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:33.879 in this case it's an electrical uh action, electro mechanical 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:37.120 action that is causing it. So it's you know, it's 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:39.080 a it's a little bit easier on the people who 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:41.399 are operating it. They just have to make sure that 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:45.520 they're lowering it properly and then it's at the correct depth. 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:47.280 All of that kind of stuff and and that the 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.359 teeth are at the right length. It's just like the handdoggers. 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:53.160 You've got to make sure that those those teeth are 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:55.440 are proper so that they can cut into the material 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:59.560 to ice properly. Uh So, Usually you also have another 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:03.400 cool mechanism literally to hold the ice in place. Once 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:05.959 you've reached the point where you're ready to lift up 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:10.720 the next segment. They have spring loaded lever arms inside 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.359 that inner barrel that think of it like little pincers 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:16.439 that come in and hold that core in place because 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:19.560 you want it to be really steady when you're lifting 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:23.840 that drill up. You know you're talking forty or more 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:27.240 up a borehole. You don't want to lose the grip 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:29.880 on that ice core sample because that would be bad. 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.760 So the spring loaded lever arms hold them and they 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:39.720 are called something that I love, core dogs. It's like 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.440 it's like going to the county fair and get yourself 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:45.159 and a couple of core dogs. I like to go 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:49.359 to Polucaville to get my core dogs local establishment here 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:51.919 in Atlanta. Now there is another type of drill that 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.240 I love. Yeah, I think this is excellent. I love 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:57.480 looking at the picture. I was looking at a picture 0:18:57.480 --> 0:18:59.639 of this before I read about what it was, and 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.200 I was like, I don't understand how it cuts because 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:04.600 it just looked like a pipe with kind of a 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:07.480 strange lip. It didn't have any teeth, right, And then 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:09.159 I read about it and I was like, oh, I 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:13.520 see it doesn't thermal drill. Yeah, so it's using heat. Yeah, 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:16.600 So imagine sort of a pipe that on the end 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:19.080 of the lip of the pipe has a heating element 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.480 and it gets hot, melts straight through the ice and 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:26.280 just sinks on down there. Yeah. Yeah, until you get 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:29.280 to again to the end of the capacity of the drill, 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:31.440 and then you have to lift it back up again. 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:34.840 So yeah, it's really I love that idea, the idea 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:37.800 of of of let's just use heat to work our way. 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:39.639 I mean, come on, it's ice, let's use heat to 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:42.879 melt away down there. Yeah. That actually does seem like 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:45.720 it would have some limitations though, and it does. In fact, 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:49.920 you are you're more likely to use that when you're 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:55.320 using ice that is above minus ten degrees celsius, for example, 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:58.200 you don't know, which is fourteen degrees fahrenheit. By the way, 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:02.359 you wouldn't use that in older areas because the melt 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:05.359 off the water that you would be creating. As the 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:09.200 heating element melts, the ice would likely start to refreeze 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.360 and that would become a problem. So you are more 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:17.960 likely to use it in uh in quote unquote warmer situations, 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:21.320 it will still be really cold. Um And then if 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:23.760 you were to encounter those colder situations, you would use 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:27.919 electro mechanical drill. And in fact, there are plenty of 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:32.560 ice core drilling projects that that will switch out the 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:36.480 drills based upon whatever the current conditions happen to be 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:39.840 as they are drilling. So it's not like some only 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.080 used one and some only use the other. Most will 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:45.040 rely on whichever one is the best fit for that 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:54.200 particular set of conditions. Now, I would imagine that once 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:58.560 you get down to a certain depth, the whole enterprise 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.240 sort of changes. I mean, once you're getting two thousands 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:05.720 of feet down, you're going to start dealing with the 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:09.880 ways that ice behaves kind of like a plastic and yeah, 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:11.800 do you know what I mean. Yeah, you got to 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:15.160 remember this ice is under a lot of pressure. I mean, 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:17.440 just from Waight alone, it's under a ton of pressure. 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:20.040 But there's also there are other elements there too, there's 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:25.120 glacial flow, right, Glaciers move, they don't move very quickly, 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:28.040 but there is this pressure from glacial flow where the 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:32.480 glacier is potentially moving in a specific direction, which means 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:35.199 that's putting pressure on the borehole too. And if the 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:39.439 pressure is too great, that borehole can close, and by close, 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:42.960 we've pretty much bean collapse in on itself. Like closing 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:46.359 sounds pretty gentle, it's not a gentle thing. Well, whether 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:48.760 it's gentle or not, it's a big problem for your 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:52.520 research project exactly. So, Uh, there are times where you 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:56.080 will have these these projects where they will start pumping 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:58.160 liquid down the hole, and there's a couple of different 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:01.520 reasons for this. Some will pump anti freeze liquid down 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:04.960 the whole in order to make sure that any melted runoff, 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:07.800 for example, if you're using a thermal drill doesn't refreeze, 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:11.399 but then you may need to put down a different 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:14.240 type of liquid, another one that would be less likely 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:17.960 to freeze, in order to equalize the pressure from inside 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:21.280 the hole to what is outside the hole. Yeah, I 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:24.440 read somewhere that the drill fluid that they would normally 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:29.719 use can be something like kerosene, like a petroleum derived fluid. Uh, 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.800 and it just basically has to have the right freezing point. 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:36.600 And they wanted to be of a certain thickness right 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:38.239 right because they have to you know, if it's if 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:41.320 it's too thin, then it's not going to create the 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:43.920 pressure that they need in order to keep the whole stable. 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:47.800 And if the freezing point is too is too high, 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:51.120 then it's going to just end up mucking everything up anyway. 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:54.399 So it is a delicate balance. There's one project in 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:56.600 particular I wanted to talk about the kind of give 0:22:56.640 --> 0:22:59.200