May 31, 2017

Theme of the day: Science trench is ready

The now ready science trench 1. To the right the German line scanner. The two warm laboratories take up quite some space; but there is still passage to the exit to the elevator and the final core storage cave in the back.


Really good news today. While the drillers have had several good days of production, the science trench took a little longer to make ready. This has been a matter of choice, as Bruno, our electrician has been focussing on getting the drilling and the warm laboratories going.


Today, he (and assistants) finished the electrical circuits to power all experiments. Tomorrow the science trench will be populated at all stations and core processing can begin. Thus EGRIP camp will become fully operational two years and 5 days after we arrived with the packed down camp from NEEM with tractor train.

What we did today:

  1. Science trench now ready. Processing will begin tomorrow.
  2. Digging up cables between main generator and carpenters garage and re-laying them.
  3. Drilling in two shifts. 20.11 m drilled today until 19.00.
  4. Two shift logging of ice cores. Logging depth 232.00 m.
  5. New cook’s freezer cave is ready for furnishing.
  6. German snow sampling.
  7. Japanese aerosol sampling and snow experiments.
  8. Water vapour sampling, methane sampling, boundary layer and meteorology station working.

Weather today: Sunshine. Temp. -11°C to -21°C. Wind: 7-12 kt from SW. Visibility: To horizon.

FL, J.P. Steffensen

The now ready science trench 2. From left to right: Danish ECM measurement. The horizontal bandsaw for splitting the core. The German DEP system. The dark doorway leads to the shelves with freshly drilled cores. Between the tables to the right for arranging and cutting ice samples there is a tunnel entrance to the drill trench.