May 31, 2018

We prepare ourselves for high winds this evening

Damiano and Eliza in the science trench. Damiano is preparing slabs of polished ice cores for the line scanner. The scanner is emitting red light in the background.

We received a forecast this morning about high winds and blowing snow tonight. So some time was spent in stowing equipment onto sleds and tying it down. Luckily, the period of keeping our large buried balloon under pressure ended today, so we were able to reverse the pumps, empty the balloon and stow the pumping equipment. Tomorrow, when the wind goes down again, we will dig our way into the cave that the now deflated balloon has left for us. We hope to find a 35 m long and 5 m diameter cave. Drilling goes well as does ice core processing. At dinner time, crew got an early taste of Christmas, as Sarah and J.P. cooked a standard Danish Christmas menu. Yeah, we know it’s not Christmas; but it is -12 ºC and snowing outside, at it is white everywhere.

What we did today:

1. Ice core drilling in two shifts. Status at 20.00: 22.89 m drilled in 8 runs. Drillers’ depth: 970.54 m.
2. Cleaning up in camp and in cargo line.
3. Standard generator stop for oil change.
4. Finished pumping the balloon and packed pumping equipment.
5. Last Nansen sled under repair.
6. Ice core processing 31.35 m, bags 941 - 997 (517.00 m – 548.35 m).
7. Measurements in isotope laboratory. Isotope CFA at bag 760.
8. Measurements in physical properties laboratory. At bag 836.
9. Water vapour sampling and measuring.
10. Surface snow sampling.

Weather today: Overcast and light snow, lighter cloud cover in the evening. Temp. -10 ºC to -16 ºC. Wind: 9 kt to 14 kt from SW and W. Visibility: 500 m during snow, otherwise 2 km.

FL, J.P. Steffensen