Running pipe

After several days of constant core coming up, our drillers had a challenge down the hole, so they had to pull out the drill pipe, sort the issue, and run the pipe again.

That’s a lot of pipe, through the ice and down through our hole in the bedrock.

It’s the nature of drilling in Antarctica, where the freezing conditions push our gear to the limit.

The team are now back to pulling core, as we drill down through time into the geological archive of sediment hidden under the ice sheet at Crary Ice Rise.

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Ross Shelf Reports
Drilling wraps up at Crary Ice Rise

Drilling wraps up at Crary Ice Rise

09 January 2026

We’ve completed drilling at Crary Ice Rise with a whopping 228 metres of sediment core, exceeding our target of 200 metres!

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Ross Shelf Reports
200 metres of sediment core!

200 metres of sediment core!

06 January 2026

Third time’s a charm - we have successfully drilled 200 metres of sediment core from beneath the ice sheet at Crary Ice Rise!

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