What is "andrill"

n. (w: Antarctic Drilling Project)

ANDRILL (ANtarctic DRILLing Project) is a scientific drilling project in Antarctica gathering information about past periods of global warming and cooling. The project involves scientists from Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and the United States. At two sites in 2006 and 2007, ANDRILL team members drilled through ice, seawater, sediment and rock to a depth over more than 1,200 m and recovered a virtually continuous core record from the present to nearly 20 million years ago. The project is based at McMurdo Station in Antarctica.

In studying the cores, ANDRILL scientists from various disciplines are gathering detailed information about past periods of global warming and cooling. A major goal of the project is to significantly improve the understanding of Antarctica's impact on the world's oceans currents and the atmosphere by reconstructing the behavior of Antarctic sea-ice, ice-shelves, glaciers and sea currents over tens of millions of years. Initial results imply rapid changes and dramatically different climates at various times on the southernmost continent.

The $30 million project has achieved its operational goal of retrieving a continuous core record of the last 17 million years, filling crucial gaps left by previous drilling projects. Making use of knowledge gained through prior Antarctic drilling projects, ANDRILL employed novel techniques to reach record depths at its two drilling sites. Among the innovations deployed were a hot-water drilling system that allowed for easier ice-boring and a flexible drill pipe that could accommodate tidal oscillations and strong currents.

On December 16, 2006, ANDRILL broke the previous record of set in 2000 by the Ocean Drilling Program's drill ship, the Joides Resolution. The Antarctic-record of core ANDRILL went on to recover represents geologic time to about 13 million years ago. In 2007, drilling at the Southern McMurdo Sound, ANDRILL scientists recovered another 1138 meters (3733.6 ft) of core. One goal in 2006 was to look at a period of around 3 to 5 million years ago in the Pliocene, which scientists know to be warmer. The team’s sedimentologists identified more than 60 cycles in which ice sheets or glaciers advanced and retreated across McMurdo Sound.