July 21, 2017

700 meters

The current drill team at EGRIP: Karl Emil, Matthias, Steffen, Jan, Marius and in the front Bent.

After fixing a few issues during the morning, the electronics section was successfully installed in the deep drill, and after dinner the drilling passed 700 meters (drillers depth). This called for a celebration in camp and Andrew made an excellent punch for all of us. While reaching 700 meters was a nice corner to turn the drillers are even more satisfied with the decreasing inclination of the bore hole with depth. This drilling marks the first time we have been able to actively control the inclination of the bore hole. Hence the drillers group photo had to include the bore hole logger, our trusty instrument that measures a wide range of parameters in the bore hole, including the inclination.
As the drilling started slowly the loggers decided to also start logging the AWI test core, and with some help from others in camp managed to log a good part of the AWI core, while also taking care of the deep core as it got drilled. Logging is still unproblematic using our brittle ice routine.
Physical properties measurements and surface measurements progressed as planned.

What we did today:

1. Deep drilling core length (from drillers depths) at 19.00: 8.8 m.
2. Drillers depth at 19.00: 699.5 m.
3. Continued repair of drill electronics, now again functional.
4. Logging and packing of AWI-test ice core from 15.7 m to 66.9 m.
5. Water vapour, methane, aerosols, snow and boundary layer measurements
6. Physical properties measurements.
7. Water isotope sampling for sublimation studies.
8. Clearing snowdrifts from camp, finishing up ramp pallet.

Weather: Overcast turning sunny after lunch and the overcast again late in the evening. Wind turned from E through S to W during the day, up to 8 m/s, gusting to 10 m/s. Temperatures from -17°C to -5°C.

FL, Bo Vinther