Army Scientists Drill Through Arctic Ice Cap Part 2

Description

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE OFFICE OF NEWS SERVICES THE PENTAGON, WASHINGTON, D. C. 20301 - LIBERTY 5-6700 AUDIO-VISUAL DIVISION RADI0-TV-NEWSFILM BRANCH ROOM 2E765 - EXTENSION 75111 Release Number 207-66 DUPE NEGATIVE TO: Footage: 170' 16nm Color Master FINE GRAIN TO; September 20, 1966 ARMY SCIENTISTS DRILL THROUGH ARCTIC ICE CAP (Official U. S. Army film released by Department of Defense) A team of U. S. Array scientists has drilled through nearly a mile of the polar ice cap in a research program designed to provide a vertical profile of polar history dating back more than ten thousand years. On July 4, 1966, a team from the Army Materiel Command's Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, working on a grant from the National Science Foundation, reached a depth of 4,562 feet and brought to the surface samples of interningled sand, gravel and stones from a depth 12 feet below the ice sheet. The Army conducted its research program in Greenland by agreement with the Government of Denmark. The drilling site was Camp Century, 140 miles out on the ice camp from Greenland's upper northwest coast. The cores of slit and stones as well as the ice cores recovered in the drilling process will undergo a complete analytical study at the U. S. Army's Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, Hanover, New Hampshire. It is expected that the study will furnish information as to whether the land under the ice was ever exposed to the air - free of ice - or if it lay under the sea at any time in history. The drilling techniques, designed to provide a continuous ice core from the top to the bottom of the Greenland ice cap, centered around a thermal drill with an electrically heated hollow drill head which literally melted its way through the ice around s core five and one-half feet long. During the final coring operations an electro-nechanical drill - a new development with a hollow rotery head equipped with smell bits - was used. After being dated, the ice samples are expected to shed some light on many climatological factors such as changes in precipitation and temperature (the temperature at the bottom of the ice cap was plus 9 degrees Fahrenheit). Other data sought are the composition of the air througho the ice, salt nuclei content, the dustiness of the atmosphere, and the frequence of major volcanic eruptions down through the ages. NOTE TO EDITORS: PLEASE CREDIT DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE IN TITLE OR COMMENTARY The fine grain master positive, released to the company designated above, is for duplication and distribution to interested TV and Newsreel pool members. It is then to be returned within 72 hours to the Film Library, Army Pictorial Center, 35-11 35th Avenue, Long Island City 1, New York. The master positive must not be cut in any manner. A dupe negative is also for release to the company designated above for distribution to pool members so desiring for duplication purposes. Within 24 hours it will be delivered to DeLuxe Laboratories, 850 Tenth Avenue, New York, N. Y., telephone Circle 7-3220 where it will be avail- able to non-pool members and other authorized organizations which make satisfactory financial arrangements with DeLuxe Laboratories. The dupe negative must not be cut in any manner. D23413

Collection

Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer

Series

Filmed News Releases