June 13, 2019

A day of borehole cleaning and many smaller activities

Sarah Harvey shot this picture of the beautiful sky above camp yesterday. Dome, snow bar and birds cage (currently uninhabited).

Because of the continued problem with hard core breaks, it was decided to make a complete filtering of the bore hole from top to bottom. It was then discovered that a valve on the filter was partly defect, which may explain why the previous filter runs have had problems to clean the hole sufficiently. The repair allows the filter to descend faster and to collect chips more efficiently. Furthermore, the core catcher springs have been adjusted. Because of the many filter runs, today’s production is fairly low.
The beautiful but very warm weather continues with mostly blue sky and temperatures reaching -0.6°C in the afternoon. The good weather has been used to carry out various tasks on the surface. The lead-in skiway flags have been checked and repaired making ready for intensive use of the skiway next week. A new outhouse has been dug, preparing for next week’s big rush when camp population will rise to 40+ persons. Nico has been out setting up passive seismic stations around camp that will utilize the energy released by the drill head to explore the physical properties of the ice sheet and the bedrock. For the water vapour drone, it has been decided to wait for spare parts to arrive on next week’s flights, rather than risking another incidence potentially damaging the intact sampling system. In the evening, we had a ‘Science night’ with interesting presentations about MAGPIE, ice core physical properties, surface measurements and the current warming event, as well as CO2 analyses of Antarctic ice cores.

What we did today:

1. The last 24h have mostly been used filtering the borehole with a repaired filter.
2. Ice core logging depth 1936.30 m (length: 6.8 m).
3. Station for atmospheric moisture sampling and isotopic measurement is active.
4. The isotope CFA laboratory bag 3094 to bag 3126 (length 17.60 m).
5. Ordering spare parts for drone to arrive next week.
6. MAGPIE stayed in camp as all equipment is now set up and running.
7. Surface group still on extended schedule due to the warm temperatures.
8. Checking and repairing Skiway lead-in flags.
9. Setting up passive seismic stations around camp.
10. Working on borehole inclination calculations.

EGRIP population is 24. EGRIP average age is 37 years.

Weather: Similar to yesterday, mostly clear blue sky and very high temperatures. Temp. -9°C to -0.6°C. Wind: 4 kt to 10 kt from W -> SW -> S.

FL, Anders Svensson