June 22, 2018

Logging catches up with drilling

Testing a newly designed toilet seat. Apparently, there is no risk, the hole has the right size.


The problems of the deep drill have been identified and a repair of mechanical and electronic parts is in progress. Meanwhile, drilling is performed with a setup that includes parts of the drill that was deployed at the previous deep drilling project - NEEM. Always good to have a backup in the field, when the unexpected occurs. The loggers have now reached the depth of the deep drilling, and the ice core buffer now only contains logged 1.65 m long sections. In the evening, there was a soccer match going on in front of main dome, preparations for tomorrows dinner were going on in the kitchen, and Dr. Strangelove was on show on the 2nd floor, while snow samples were taken at last year’s firn gas site, a deep core was drilled in the drill trench, and water isotopes were analysed in the science trench. At 11 pm Chris went out on the skiway for a final grooming, and at midnight the water vapour drone will go into the air for the 4th time today, if weather allows. Plenty of activity, indeed.

What we did today:

  1. Deep drilling 9.92 m. Drillers’ depth 1197.91 m. Loggers depth 1209.92 m
  2. Shallow drilling at firn gas site to 93.5 m depth
  3. DEP measurement of main core 955.90-979.00 m depth
  4. Measurements in isotope laboratory, final depth: 715.00 m
  5. Measurements in physical properties laboratory, final depth 888.25 m
  6. Water vapour sampling and measuring. The drone was up day and night
  7. Continuing grooming of skiway over night
  8. Packing down firn gas camp

Weather: Overcast all day, light snowfall at night. Temp. -8 ºC to -18 ºC.
Wind: up to 8 kt, but periods of no wind. Wind turning over last 24h:
S-W-N-E. Visibility: mostly unrestricted. Contrast: low. 

FL, Anders Svensson

It requires a lot of care and patience to handle the up to 3.5 m long core troughs in the core buffer. Nikol, Sepp and Damiano.

The newly drilled cores are much easier to handle than the brittle ice…

… and the cut is perfect.