This award provides support to hold the next international meeting of ice drilling and coring entities. This workshop is the 6th in a series extending back to 1974 that are held at irregular intervals. The last two workshops, held, in 1993 and 2000, were hosted in Japan. At the first meeting of the International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS), held in March of 2004, it was verified that the next workshop would be held in the United States. This proposal addresses that decision. An international workshop on ice-drilling technology in 2006 is particularly well timed due to the unprecedented number of successful deep-drilling projects that have been completed since the time of the last workshop in 2000, and the proliferation of shallow and medium-depth core recovery activities that have also been concluded successfully during this time. Ice coring technologies are currently in a state of rapid evolution due to the experience gained in the numerous recent deep drilling programs, the planning and development of a new deep-capacity drill system in the United States, and the requirements for new science activities that are pushing the limits of known, demonstrated drilling capabilities. This workshop will provide the opportunity for entities currently engaged in ice drilling and coring activities to share the results of the most recent projects and present their solutions to challenges encountered in the field during drilling operations. Participants will also benefit by learning from each other about planned activities and future challenges that will result from new activities that have never been attempted before (e.g. subglacial lake drilling). The broader impacts of the workshop involve the opportunity for the drilling community to continue discussions on shared and collaborative activities that will permit the effective transfer of new technologies to the world-wide community and to seek opportunities for new joint or shared activities that will potentially lead to a more global approach to the proliferation of best technologies in this field.
