The Norwegians send teams out on to the floating ice to drill holes into it and extract cores to determine the ice's origin.

BBC: Arctic ice melting at 'amazing' speed, scientists find

In the Arctic, the oil giant is exploiting melting sea ice to drill for more of the oil causing global warming in the first place.

CNN: Shell Oil's multibillion dollar Arctic hoax

The plan to drill through the Antarctic ice-sheet to sample the hidden waters of Lake Ellsworth in December involves BAS and NOC and other bodies and is led by a professor from Bristol University.

BBC: Decision looms on future for British polar research

Representative PAUL BROWN (Republican, Georgia): America has been drilling for ice on Mars, yet we cannot drill for oil in America.

NPR: Energy A Priority As Congress Returns From Break

The team said it used a small drill to penetrate the last metres of ice and immediately withdrew it, allowing the lake water to percolate up and create a frozen plug that the team will collect next year.

BBC: 'New frontier' of Antarctic lake exploration

Over the next five years, the team will use a long, hollow, rotating drill to cut and retrieve a cylinder of ice roughly 12 centimetres across.

ECONOMIST: The South Pole as location and metaphor

The drifting chunk of ice, more than 32 miles long by 12 miles wide, forced the drill ship Noble Discoverer to move off the planned well as a precaution, company spokesman Curtis Smith said.

CNN: Ice floe halts Shell's new Arctic well