Non Coring

Portable Hot Water Drills

Smaller still are three portable and hand-held hot-water shot hole drills, designed to complement the air-driven shot hole drill described below. These are firn drills with no return water flow. One of these is sled-mounted for towing by an oversnow vehicle; the others, further reduced in size, are transportable by Twin Otter.

Kamb-Englehardt Hot Water Drills

Smaller than the AMANDA drill but operating on the same principles, the Caltech drill was developed by Barclay Kamb and Hermann Engelhardt at Caltech, used for many seasons in Antarctica, and recently turned over to ICDS. It can drill and ream a 4-inch diameter hole to the bed through 1200 meters of ice in a two or three days. It has been used primarily to study processes at the base of West Antarctic ice streams and interstream ridges. The Kamb-Engelhardt drill also has a down-hole attachment that allows coring.