MB Century has sold Rig 32 to Webster Energy Services for an undisclosed sum as it shifts focus towards its engineering and technical services.

To access the elusive sediment, the team had to first use a hot-water drill to melt a hole through 523 m of ice, then lowered more than 1300 m of ‘riser’ and ‘drill string’ pipe down the hole. Once the core was pulled up, the scientists described, photographed and x-rayed the tubes of sediment, and took samples. The team worked in shifts around the clock to make the best use of limited time on site.

“You can’t just buy a drill like this off the shelf, it’s custom-built for the challenge,” Mandeno says. “We are bringing together lots of different parts and pieces and adapting them to address our problem, which comes with a lot of unique challenges and workarounds.

The drilling team included Alex Pyne from VUW and Tony Kingan and Adam Rutten from Porirua-based Webster Drilling and Exploration. The extensive Antarctic drilling experience offered by this team allowed recovery of a near continuous composite 80m thick sediment core from three locations in the Friis Hills.

An international team, led by New Zealand scientists, has set up camp in the small West Coast town of Whataroa to drill 1.3km deep into the South Island’s high-risk fault.

Where does the world's leading space agency turn when it is planning a drilling programme on Mars?

A small New Zealand drilling company is helping America's space agency to design a robot to look for signs of life on Mars.