If you are a journalist and would like to speak to any of the team who are on-ice (Dec 2024 - Jan 2025 and Dec 2025 - Jan 2026) please contact us at swaiscomms@gns.cri.nz for more information. 

Ross Shelf Reports
Drilling wraps up at Crary Ice Rise

Drilling wraps up at Crary Ice Rise

09 January 2026

We’ve completed drilling at Crary Ice Rise with a whopping 228 metres of sediment core, exceeding our target of 200 metres!

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Ross Shelf Reports
200 metres of sediment core!

200 metres of sediment core!

06 January 2026

Third time’s a charm - we have successfully drilled 200 metres of sediment core from beneath the ice sheet at Crary Ice Rise!

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Ross Shelf Reports
Relevelling the rig

Relevelling the rig

06 January 2026

The team had to pause to relevel the Antarctic Intermediate Depth Drill rig. 

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Ross Shelf Reports
100 metres of sediment core!

100 metres of sediment core!

02 January 2026

We’ve passed a huge milestone – we’ve now retrieved more than 100 metres of sediment core, so we are over halfway towards our target of 200 metres. 

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Ross Shelf Reports
Drilling through the storm

Drilling through the storm

01 January 2026

Today a storm swept through the camp, with high winds of 35 kts gusting to 45 kts blowing snow and poor visibility for many hours.

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Ross Shelf Reports
Running pipe

Running pipe

31 December 2025

After several days of constant core coming up, our drillers had a challenge down the hole, so they had to pull out the drill pipe, sort the issue, and run…

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Ross Shelf Reports
Last, but not least

Last, but not least

30 December 2025

The third and final group of our on-ice team have made it to Crary Ice Rise – later than planned due to the weather challenges we’ve battled with this year.

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Ross Shelf Reports
Core on deck!

Core on deck!

29 December 2025

We have successfully retrieved sediment core from beneath 523 m of ice at Crary Ice Rise, rotary coring with our custom-designed Antarctic Intermediate Depth Drill.

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Ross Shelf Reports
Riser to the challenge

'Riser' to the challenge

28 December 2025

We’ve risen to the Antarctic drilling challenge – our riser is in, connecting the ‘Big Rig’ at the surface of the ice to the bedrock 523m below.

 

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Ross Shelf Reports
Setting up for microbiology and core curation

Setting up for microbiology and core curation

27 December 2025

While our drillers are hard at work moving forward towards geological drilling, our newly arrived science team are working at lightning speed to get prepared for when we have our…

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