A report on ice core drilling on the western plateau of Mt. Belukha in the Russian Altai Mountains in 2003

A 171m deep ice core from the surface to the bottom has been successfully drilled on the West Belukha snow-firn Plateau in the Russian Altai Mountains in the summer of 2003. The drill system used in this project was an electro-mechanical drill with a barrel 135cm long and 9.5cm in inner diameter manufactured by Geo Tecs Co., Japan. The maximum core length for a drilling run is 55cm. It took 87.5 hours in actual working time of 7 working days to drill the core down to the bottom of the glacier. The total number of drilling runs was 325. The mean length of the drilled core was 48.6cm. Most of the cores were not brittle and had a good cylindrical shape. High air temperature above the melting point in the drilling shelter caused some trouble in drilling. One of the major troubles was slip of cutters due to adhesion of cutting tips to the cutters and shoes.