Drilling for Water on Greenland Ice Sheet

This spring, Dr. Kip Solomon, Professor of the Geology and Geophysics Department, and Olivia Miller, a graduate student of the Geology and Geophysics Department, traveled to the Greenland ice sheet to study how the ice sheet is melting. Working with an international team of scientists, they were trying to understand melt that percolates into the ice and forms an aquifer that stays in liquid form all year long. Storage of water within the ice sheet will affect sea level rise. "We think this aquifer, called a perennial firn aquifer, behaves like a groundwater aquifer and so we are applying traditional groundwater tools and techniques to study this unique feature of the Greenland ice sheet." says Miller.

Check out their blog for more information: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/fromthefield/category/greenland-aquifer-expedition/