Tim Naish

Victoria University of Wellington and GNS Science

ANDRILL (Antarctic Drilling) is an international programme investigating Antarctica's role in global environmental change through the recovery of sediment cores from beneath the floating sea ice and ice shelves surrounding Antarctica. It involves scientists from the United States, New Zealand Germany and Italy, with a project manager from Antarctica NZ.

The ANDRILL Programme was a major scientific and operational success during the 2006/07 Antarctic season when a 1285m-long sediment core was successfully recovered from beneath the McMurdo Ice Shelf (MIS), representing the longest and most complete (98% recovery) geological record from the Antarctic continental margin to date. Information obtained from studying the core material will provide a key reference record of climate and ice sheet variability over the last 12 million years.

The 2007/08 ANDRILL season in Southern McMurdo Sound successfully completed a core to 1138.54 metres below the sea floor. It is hoped that the core recovered will provide information about the middle to upper Miocene, never previously recovered in the Ross Sea. With the completion of the field work, attention now turns to analysis of core samples retrieved.

Metadata and website links 

Geophysical site survey for ANDRILL project

The ANDRILL drilling project - 1284.87 m and 1138.54 m sediment cores from below the McMurdo/Ross Ice Shelf

ANDRILL website