Successful drilling of Antarctic subglacial bedrock with China's self-developed equipment
China's 35th Antarctic Inland Team convoy is on its way. That evening, 37 members of the inland team of Antarctic Science and Technology Examination Team, Kunlun Team and Taishan Team, returned to Zhongshan Station in the snowstorm. (Xinhua News Agency reporter Liu Shiping)
Xinhua News Agency, Zhongshan Station, Antarctica, Feb. 14 (Reporter Liu Shiping) China's self-developed polar drilling equipment recently successfully drilled through the Antarctic ice sheet nearly 200 meters thick, obtaining continuous ice core samples and subglacial core samples.
This is the first application of China's self-developed drilling equipment for the polar ice sheet and subglacial bedrock in Antarctica. The samples of subglacial core are obtained for the first time in the world in this region. It provides an important scientific basis for the study of the movement and evolution of the Antarctic ice sheet and the study of subglacial geology in Antarctica.
The drilling site is located on the Antarctic ice sheet about 12 kilometers south of Zhongshan Station. On January 23 this year, a team led by Zhang Nan of Jilin University officially drilled. Five days later, it broke through shallow ice and began to drill into deep ice. A breakthrough was made in the drilling on February 10, when it reached 191 meters, it entered the interlayer of ice rock.
Reporters at the drilling site saw that the ice core drilled at this time was yellow-gray, mixed with a large number of rock and soil particles, which means that it is close to the ice-rock interface. The drilling team then replaced the subglacial bedrock drilling tools and finally drilled a sample of the subglacial core.
"The success of this drilling is a major technological breakthrough, which provides a strong technical support for China to carry out in-depth polar drilling projects and obtain more core samples under deep ice in Antarctica." Zhang Nan said.
Sun Bo, a glacier expert and leader of China's 35th Antarctic expedition, said that the drilling was aimed at verifying the reliability of drilling equipment, adding new "weapons" to China's polar expedition and laying the foundation for further better Antarctic ice sheet investigation and research.