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from the issue of October 4, 2007
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Researchers seek climate change 'Rosetta Stone'
BY TOM SIMONS, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
When the Antarctic Geological Drilling Program begins its second drilling campaign this week, scientists will be looking for a "Rosetta Stone" in sediment cores that will tie together decades of paleoclimate research in Antarctica and the rest of the world to get a more complete picture of how the Antarctic ice sheets responded to past times of global warmth.
The Rosetta Stone is the tablet found in northern Egypt in 1799 that provided the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. The "Rosetta Stone" target for ANDRILL scientists in this fall's Southern McMurdo Sound Project is the warmest part of the middle Miocene, a time between 14 million and 15 million years ago when the Earth was much warmer than today, and for an extended period.
This year's ANDRILL project will drill for rock cores beneath sea ice with a goal of bridging the geological gap between cores drilled by two previous projects in the Ross Sea area. ANDRILL's McMurdo Ice Shelf Project recovered an Antarctic-record 1,285 meters of rock core last year, representing geologic time from the present day to approximately 13 million years ago. ANDRILL's predecessor, the Cape Roberts Project in the late 1990s, drilled core that represents the period from 17 million to 40 million years ago.
The geological target this fall is the past 17 million years of Earth history, including the 4 million-year gap between the earlier projects, especially the warm middle Miocene period.
According to geologist David Harwood, a professor of geoscience at UNL and research director for ANDRILL's Science Management Office at UNL, understanding what happened in the warm period is especially important as Earth's climate continues to warm.
See images, learn about the science and keep track of progress in ANDRILL's second season at www.andrill.org.
10 things every faculty or staff employee at UNL should know about ANDRILL.
• ANDRILL stands for Antarctic geological drilling. It is a multi-nation project of scientists, drillers, educators and students from the United States, New Zealand, Italy and Germany.
• The goal of ANDRILL is to recover sedimentary rock along the coasts of Antarctica and read the clues in the rocks to understand the role the continent plays in global climate.
• The ANDRILL Science Management Office for the entire project is located in Bessey Hall, room 126.
• To reach Antarctica from Lincoln, UNL professor Chris Fielding flew on planes along the following route: Lincoln >> Denver >> Los Angeles >> Auckland, New Zealand >> Christchurch, New Zealand >> McMurdo Station, Antactica. The final leg from Christchurch to McMurdo Station can take from five to eight hours depending on the type of plane — the fastest on a jet, the slowest on a C130 Hercules.
• More than 100 scientists, students and technicians from the four nations will be involved in the two drilling projects. The UNL-based ANDRILL office will send 10 individuals to Antarctica this season.
• Every person who will take part in ANDRILL must take part in “Happy Camper School,” a course that teaches cold-weather survival.
• Each core is 12 meters long. Digital scans of cores are completed at the drill site. The cores are then transported to the science lab in McMurdo Station and split into halves using a diamond-coated saw built by UNL’s Physics and Astronomy shop. Half of the core is used for current research, the other half is shipped to a Florida State University storage facility for future study.
• The National Science Foundation awarded a $1.2 million grant to UNL to support a NET documentary on ANDRILL and a nationwide community outreach program developed by the University of Nebraska State Museum. The documentary, “Antarctica’s Icy Sheets,” will be part of the NOVA series on PBS.
• Last season, the ANDRILL project set a drilling record, recovering core from 1,284 meters below the sea floor. Positioned 15 feet above the ice shelf, the drill also bored through 85 meters of ice shelf and spanned 840 meters of sea water to reach the sea floor. This season, ANDRILL aims to break the drilling record.
Read it, See it, Hear it
Hear an interview with David Harwood and Richard Levy at
http://www.unl.edu/ucomm/ucomm/av/audio/podcasts/20071003_LevyHarwood.mp3.
On the Ice
The 10 individuals from UNL taking part in ANDRILL's second season project are:
Megan Berg, ANDRILL
Jake Carnes, geosciences
(undergraduate)
Chris Fielding, geosciences
Tracy Frank, geosciences
David Harwood, geosciences
Louise Huffman, ANDRILL
Richard Levy, geosciences
Laura Lacy, ANDRILL
Josh Reed, ANDRILL
Eva Tuzzi, geosciences
(graduate student)
GO TO: ISSUE OF OCTOBER 4
NEWS HEADLINES FOR OCTOBER 4
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Fankhauser trades cigarettes for running shoes
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Scarlet available in pdf format
Chancellor issues Campus Wellness Program update
Couple to serve on ANDRILL teams
Psych training program outlined in journal article
Q & A with David Harwood
Researchers seek climate change 'Rosetta Stone'
Trip offers first-hand experience to students
732953S37362X
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