Closure Rate of a 700 m Deep Bore Hole at Mizuho Station, East Antarctica

Measurements of the bore-hole diameter were made with three-contact-point calipers from the shallow layer to a depth of 700 m at Mizuho Station, East Antarctica, in 1984–86. The minimum strain-rate (i.e. secondary creep rate) of the bore-hole closure was estimated from the observed creep curve at each depth. A relation between stress and strain-rate was deduced for a temperature of −35°C and a stress range from 0.8 to 1.65 MN m−2, as where is the effective strain-rate (s−1) and τ is the effective shear stress (MN m−2). This result shows that, for comparable overburden stresses and temperature, the bore-hole closure rates at Mizuho Station are higher than those measured in bore holes at Byrd Station and in the Northern Hemisphere ice caps (Paterson 1977).