June 4, 2019

Core barrel recovered and airplane received

The top of the recovered and damaged core barrel.

As mentioned yesterday, the core barrel of the main drill was lost in the borehole Monday at noon. Today the fishing for the barrel continued, and the barrel was ‘on the hook’ at midday, but then lost again.
Finally, the core barrel was recovered by pulling up for 6 hours very slowly. Good news indeed. Drilling will continue tomorrow. Today we received Skier 31 with cargo, food, fuel, and field participants Anne-Katrine (N) and Lucas (CH). The skier took off in first attempt with JP, Steff, Bruno, Bruce, Sepp and HC. Weather was somewhat marginal with low clouds, so the mission was delayed for a few hours, but it went well. In the evening, it (of course) cleared up and we are back to blue sky. As so often before, the marginal weather was limited to the flight period.

What we did today:

1. Lost core barrel was retrieved from bore hole in a 6h operation.
2. Station for atmospheric moisture sampling and isotopic measurement is active.
3. The isotope CFA laboratory measured from bag 2839 to bag 2869 (1561.45m to 1577.95m).
4. No MAGPIE activity today due to weather.
5. Received Skier 31 ‘tail 00’ exchanging cargo, PAX, fuel, and ATOs.
6. Replacement of ATO (assisted take-off) bottles for LC130.
7. Unpacking and storing received food and cargo.
8. Physical Properties (PP) lab set up in science trench.

EGRIP population is 24.

Weather: Overcast in the morning, slowly improving during the day and clearing up in the evening. Temp. -14°C to -20°C. Wind: 4 kt to 12 kt from NW and later W. Clouds rising from 1000 to 2000 ft and finally disappearing.

FL, Anders Svensson