SE Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX)

The presentation provides details of the Arctic Coring Expedition that led to the extraction of a core from the Lomonosov Ridge which extends from Greenland to Russia over the North Pole. Two large icebreakers (one a large Swedish ice breaker and the other a Norwegian supply boat set up as a drillship) left Tromso, Norway and were joined by a large Russian nuclear icebreaker at the ice edge, north of Svalbard. Once at the target site, the drillship carried out its drilling operations while the other two vessels broke up incoming pack ice so that it flowed around the drillship leaving it undisturbed. A drill core 432m in length was obtained for scientific study. The presentation will cover details of the ice conditions, drilling operations, life on board the ships, a picture of the North Pole, and some of the findings of the project.

Speaker: Roger Pilkington (Formerly with Canatec Associates International Ltd. (Now retired)

Roger started studying arctic sea ice in 1973. He then worked for Dome Petroleum and for Gulf Canada where he did research and developed methods for drilling with ships and structures in the ice infested waters of the Beaufort Sea. In 1988 he started his own company, Canatec, to provide arctic consulting services. Work done in the Sea of Okhotsk (Far East Russia) doing ice management for a Shell Oil offshore production operation led to an invitation to join a team of Canadians and Russians to provide ice management assistance to the ACEX project.