Oil companies have long been determined to drill in Arctic Refuge, and conservationists have been just as determined to keep them out.

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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.

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Drillers have learned to drill horizontally into long, thin seams of shale and other rock that holds oil, instead of searching for rare underground pools of hydrocarbons that have accumulated over millions of years.

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The resounding chorus of the Fields of Athenry was hushed only as long as it took Sexton to drill over the conversion and make it 24-3.

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Ambrose inquires about a drill, and before long we find ourselves at the local machine shop with half the village crowding around to watch the blond girl redrill her heelpiece.

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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.

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One day, I asked my district geologist how long it would take before we could start to drill on this joint-interest project.

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Not at Taste of the NFL, where lines (never long) moved as quickly as a 2-minute drill.

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Just before halting its investigations, the nuclear-powered rover used the drill at the end of its 7-foot-long robotic arm to bore into a rock near where it landed and analyze the powder.

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