Travel Support for US Scientists and Engineers to Attend Second Krafla Magma Drilling Project Workshop, Iceland

University Of Alaska Fairbanks Campus, Fairbanks AK

Investigators

Abstract

This award provides travel funds for five U.S. members of the Krafla Magma Drilling Project (KMDP) to attend the project?s second workshop. The meeting is scheduled for 17 and 18 September this year at Landsvirkjun Power Co.?s (LV) facilities at Burfell, Iceland. KMDP is a project of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) that seeks to probe, with coring, borehole measurements, and coupled surface observations, the rhyolite magma body under Krafla Caldera. Magma was unexpectedly encountered by the Iceland Deep Drilling Program (IDDP) through their record-breaking well IDDP-1. IDDP moved on in search of supercritical fluids, their primary goal. KMDP arose as a new project with a largely new team to target the magma itself. ICDP funded a first KMDP workshop of some 50 scientists and engineers from 8 countries in September 2014 to discuss using IDDP-1 as a ?hole of opportunity? through which coring could take place. Subsequently, it was determined that the hole of opportunity needed to be a new well drilled by LV. ICDP provisionally accepted the KMDP proposal, setting aside $1million for coring operations, with the caveat that a satisfactory proposal addendum detailing aspects of the coring and science be submitted by 28 September this year. Thus there has arisen a need for a second, smaller, tightly focused workshop concentrating on operational planning. LV has generously offered to provide food, lodging, and meeting facilities for the group. There will be about 30 participants from up to eight countries. All participants will be supported by their respective institutions or national science agencies. There will also be participation by USGS and DOE (National Laboratory) scientists.