in-SitU proBing of GLACier Ice for a better understanding of the Orbital Response of climate – SUBGLACIOR

The SUBGLACIOR project requires to advance on several major items, starting from existing technologies: -To build a probing device combining electromechanical and thermal drilling; -To build a system where the drill chips are dissolved in a dedicated fluid before being released in the borehole, in order to compensate ice hydrostatic pressure; another option being to send back to the surface through the hosepipe the chips mixed with the drilling fluid; -To combine the measurement of both the CH4 concentration and the water isotopic ratios in one spectrometer with only one gas cell; To modify the geometry of the currently existing OFCEAS in order to fit it in a narrow and long cylinder, within the probe; -To integrate the OFCEAS analyzer in the probe with high-quality control of internal temperature.
Each of these items makes a full research activity and thus a task, but also requires coordination and interactions with other ones, as technical choices for each item will have consequences on some or all of the other ones. Each partner coordinates at least one of the tasks. The responsible of the project from LGGE will as well (task 1) coordinate the progress and the interface between all the partners.
At this stage of the project a meeting will be organized every three months with all the partners, in order to ensure the good connections between all researchers or engineers involves in the project.

At the moment we didn’t get significant results. The project just start 6 months ago, it’s to early to speak about results, papers or patent.

The SUBGLACIOR probe will be absolutely unique in its kind and a true technological revolution in ice core and ice probing science, building on the frontier between two French expertises, one in laser physics and the other in ice penetrating technologies and system integration. The design, tests and implementation of each component of the SUBGLACIOR probe will be valorised through engineering articles to be published in the peer-reviewed literature and communications at international conferences (in ice core science, geophysics, and laser physics applied to environmental contexts). We will pay attention to possibilities that the produced articles involve several partners at once. This in-situ probe will be able to evaluate, within a single season in Antarctica, if a target site is suitable to recover ice as old as 1,5 million years, which is one top priority of the international community of countries involved in ice core science.
We will also consider advertising the overall project by showing the prototype at the European Research & Innovation Congress (SERI), where Floralis already exhibited the OFCEAS instrument.

At the moment we didn’t get significant results. The project just start 6 months ago, it’s to early to speak about results, papers or patent.

The aim of SUBGLACIOR is to design, construct and implement a revolutionary ice drilling system able to measure geochemical signals in situ inside ice sheets (measurements performed at the same time as the drilling) using an embedded laser spectrometer in the probe. Here, we do not speak anymore about ice core drilling. It is a real probing of the ice sheet, part of the ice being used for the online measurements.

The drilling system will include:
i) the drilling tool itself, embedding an OFCEAS laser system patented by LSP at Grenoble, and its electronics to transmit information to the surface,
ii) a special hosepipe to drive the probe, to provide power, to get the electronic information, and to circulate the drilling fluid and ice chips from the borehole to the surface,
iii) a winch.
This ensemble should be able to drill down to 3000-4000 m of depth within a single field season in Antarctica, i.e. in less than 90 days. The instrument will be carried on site by traverse vehicles or relatively small aircrafts (like Dash 7 or BT67).

This revolutionary system will then be key to ascertain the validity of future potential Antarctic sites for accessing ice older than 1 million years. Its long-term impact will also include many glaciological and biogeochemical applications.