July 18, 2018

Skier operations and glacial isotopes

Left: The current EGRIP Skier defueling team consists of our doctor Lasse, drill engineer Jan T and scientist from the CFA isotopes Mari standing I front of Skier 31, Right: The CFA isotope team, Mari, Lisa, Abby and Will – today they started to measure ice from the last ice age.

Time to say goodbye to the JSEP group after a couple of exciting days here at EGRIP. Around noon Skier 31 arrived bringing fuel and cargo to EGRIP, and picking up the JSEP group and Anna, a visiting photographer who also stayed with us from Sunday. We all look forward to see what amazing pictures Anna has taken here on the ice.
After Skier 31 departed we received Skier 32, kindly bringing us even more fuel, and then doing some training here on the EGRIP skiway. This also meant good training for our Skier defueling crew: Lasse, Mari and Jan T (see picture), who has now been fully instructed by Chris. Both Skier operations went smoothly and EGRIP camp received 11500 L of fuel from the two Skiers – a great thank you to the crews of the New York Air National Guard 109th Airlift Wing. In the CFA isotope cabin it was also a special day, as the first pieces of last from the glacial period (i.e. the last ice age) were measured.
As expected the isotopic composition of the ice changed markedly from the warm Holocene to the cold glacial. Fantastic work by Abby, Will, Mari, Lisa (see picture) and all the previous CFA crew members, that we have these measurements done here in the field. In the EGRIP drill trench, the drillers again produced some 19 m of cores, and the night time filtering team retrieved 57 kg of chips. A routine now seems in place.
The crews in the processing line and in the Physical Properties labs. all continued making good progress during the day. Some 500 m south of camp the Japanese surface team started pack down of their instrumentation.

What we did today:

1. Drilling of 19.0 m of ice core and retrieving 57 kg of slush through filtering.
2. Logging of main core, depth at 19.00: 1490.65 m.
3. Processing in the science trench down to 1429.45 m.
4. Measurements in isotope laboratory to 1261.15 m.
5. Measurements in physical properties laboratory of brittle ice down to 1410.75 m.
6. Water vapour sampling and measuring.
7. Pack down of Japanese snow crystal and surface monitoring equipment.
8. Start of pack down of equipment at the RADIX site.
9. Science talk night in the Dome.
10. Receiving Skier 31 and Skier 32 with cargo and fuel.
11. Saying goodbye to the JSEP group after exciting days.

Weather: Mostly cloudy day with occasional light snow. Temperature -21 °C to -11 °C and wind from W turning NW during the day, up to 10 kt.

FL, Bo Vinther