Scientific ice drilling began in , when Louis Agassiz attempted to drill through the Unteraargletscher in the Alps. Rotary drills were first used to drill in ice in the s, and thermal drilling, with a heated drillhead, began to be used in the s.
Ice coring began in the s, with the International Geophysical Year at the end of the decade bringing increased ice drilling activity. In , the Greenland ice sheet was penetrated for the first time with a 1, m hole reaching bedrock, using a combination of thermal and electromechanical drilling. Major projects over the following decades brought cores from deep holes in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Hand drilling, using ice augers to retrieve small cores, or small drills using steam or hot water to install ablation stakes, is also common.
The earliest attempt to drill through ice for scientific reasons was made by Louis Agassiz in , on the Unteraargletscher in the Alps. He planned to make temperature observations on the glacier's interior, and brought an iron drilling rod, 25 feet 7.
After heavy rain overnight, the drilling became much faster: a foot 30 cm of progress was made in less than fifteen minutes, and the hole eventually reached a depth of 20 feet 6.
Another hole drilled nearby reached 8 feet 2. He believed in the dilatation theory of glacier flow , which argued that the refreezing of meltwater caused glaciers to progressively lengthen; this theory implied that the flow rate should be greatest where the water input was greatest.
