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A new percussion hammer mechanism for a borehole deployable subglacial sediment corer

Makinson, Keith ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5791-1767; Ashurst, Daniel; Anker, Paul G.D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4359-4342; Smith, James A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1333-2544; Hodgson, Dominic ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3841-3746; Davis, Peter E.D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6471-6310; Smith, Andrew M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8577-482X. 2021 A new percussion hammer mechanism for a borehole deployable subglacial sediment corer [in special issue: Drilling through the Ice] Annals of Glaciology, 62 (85-86). 385 -389. https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2020.83

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Abstract/Summary

Subglacial sediments have the potential to reveal information about the controls on glacier flow, changes in ice-sheet history and characterise life in those environments. Retrieving sediments from beneath the ice, through hot water drilled access holes at remote field locations, present many challenges. Motivated by the need to minimise weight, corer diameter and simplify assembly and operation, British Antarctic Survey, in collaboration with UWITEC, developed a simple mechanical percussion corer. At depths over 1000 m however, manual operation of the percussion hammer is compromised by the lack of clear operator feedback at the surface. To address this, we present a new auto-release-recovery percussion hammer mechanism that makes coring operations depth independent and improves hammer efficiency. Using a single rope tether for both the corer and hammer operation, this modified percussion corer is relatively simple to operate, easy to maintain, and has successfully operated at a depth of >2130 m.

Item Type: Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2020.83
ISSN: 0260-3055
Additional Keywords: Subglacial sediments, Ice engineering, Glacial sedimentology
Date made live: 07 Jan 2021 09:41 +0 (UTC)
URI: https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/528236

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