June 27, 2018

Terminating the firn gas drilling and setting up the RADIX camp

The RADIX train leaving camp.

The deep drilling is now back in the EGRIP configuration (as opposed to the NEEM setup that was used over the last days) and drilling is in good progress. Drilling at the firn gas site was terminated at 140 m depth.
The science trench is coming up to speed processing beautiful early Holocene ice, with an additional gas/CFA cut as compared to previous setup. A scheduled Skier was postponed until tomorrow. We thus have scheduled flight missions both Thursday and Friday. A PistenBully ‘train’ with two sledges left for the RADIX fast-access camp with a ‘tomato’ house and science equipment. From the top of the Dome we believe to have line-of-sight to the RADIX camp 27.2 km to the NW. There is a lot of activity in the Concert-hall trench where preparations are ongoing for the ice music concert that will take place tomorrow at 5 pm.

What we did today:

1. Deep drilling 12.59 m. Drillers’ depth 1270.18 m. Loggers depth 1284.96 m
2. Science trench processing below brittle zone, depth 1147.30 – 1173.70 m.
3. DEP measurement of firn gas shallow core to 122 m depth
4. Measurements in isotope laboratory, final depth: 760.65 m
5. Measurements in physical properties laboratory
6. Shallow drilling at firn gas site was terminated at 140 m depth
7. Water vapour sampling and measuring.
8. The RADIX team moved equipment to the drill site 27.2 km NW of camp  

Weather: Ground fog in the morning until noon, thereafter blue sky with some thin high clouds. Temperature -13 ºC to -19 ºC. Wind 4-10 kt from NW turning W. 

FL, Anders Svensson

Mori and Romain in the drillers cabin with the NEEM electronics box at work.