July 14, 2016

The hidden trenches

Entances to the hidden trenches.

Looking to the West of camp you see a small entrance, two small tents and a lot of bamboo pole flags. This is all you see of the hidden sub snow surface science- and drill trenches that are the main scientific work area of the EGRP project. The tents contain a staircase and a lift to the trenches. Next week the drilling will start in the drill trench and we are looking forward to welcome the drillers on Sunday.

What have we done today:

1. Replaced broken skiway flags
2. Groomed the skiway
3. Finalised the carpenters project to build a new door section and expand the middle floor in the Dome
4. Built a handrail for the cupolar stair/ladder
5. Resampled snow surface profile in the clean snow area
6. Taked Japanize pollen samples from melted surface snow
7. Sampled tephra in old pit
8. Finalized new holes for the two outdoor toilets
9. Revisited the EGG2 site 12 km from camp

Ad. 4: The traffic to the cupula has increased with the polar bear watch schedule that we keep going until 17 July where we get additional safety equipment to camp.

Weather today: Ground fog in the night lifting at 04:00 local, mostly clear sky and sun the rest of the day. Temperature -18°C last night increasing to -8°C during the afternoon and dropping to -19°C in the evening. Wind around 10 kn all day from SW.

FL, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen