June 19, 2018

Logging ice cores at double speed

First flying with the fancy drone…

The deep drilling is steadily continuing and cores are now being logged in two shifts. This should allow the logging to catch up with the drilling within this week. At the firn drilling site the gas pumping has reached the lock-in zone and possibly the sampling program will be finalized tomorrow. In the evening, the weather became pleasant and several persons went out for a stroll or for skiing with or without kite. The water isotope group came out of the trench and tried out their fancy drone that can sample water vapour up to a height of 500m above surface. Unfortunately, the wind is a bit on the high side and the sampling did not work out today.

What we did today:

1. Deep drilling 14.86 m. Drillers’ depth 1177.74 m.
2. Firn gas drilling sampling to depth 62.9 m
3. Firn gas core DEP, final depth 24.2 m
4. Measurements in isotope laboratory, final depth: 665.50 m
5. Measurements in physical properties laboratory, final depth 850.30 m
6. Logging and cutting of this years’ brittle ice 1025.99-1055.48 m
7. Water vapour sampling and measuring.
8. Powering and preparing concert trench for use next week
9. Flying the water vapour drone

Weather: Mostly blue sky. Temp. -10 °C to -18 °C. Wind: 6-14 kt from W. Visibility: Mostly good.

FL, Anders Svensson

… then it is time for data processing. Alexandra, Abby, Valerie, and Erik.

Chris ready with a skidoo and sledge for long distance traveling. Over the last days we’ve been checking our survival boxes and made sure we are prepared for whatever situation may occur.