In 1973, the National Science Foundation identified the need for the coordination of its activities related to ice core drilling in polar and high-altitude localities. It awarded a contract to University of Nebraska-Lincoln, creating the Polar Ice Coring Office (PICO) in 1974, to manage all operational and logistic planning; development, procurement, and operation of ice core drilling equipment; and the overall coordination of activities associated with ice core drilling. In 1988, the PICO contract was awarded to the University of Alaska Fairbanks which hosted the program until 1995 when it returned to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. From 1989-1994, PICO provided drilling operations for projects in Antarctica as well as the Greenland Ice Sheet Program, a project PICO began in 1989 to drill and recover an ice core to the bottom of the Greenland ice sheet. Today, the office has been renamed Ice Core Drilling Services and is located at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
From the guide to the Polar Ice Coring Office Records, 1979-1995, (University of Alaska Fairbanks Alaska Polar Regions Collections & Archives)
