June 24, 2019

Successful fishing

Left: Steff and Søren showing the two termination wires recovered from the bore hole. Right: Drill head with recovered termination wire.

Today was an exciting day in the drill trench, as drilling operations were started first thing in the morning – but then disappointment as the drill could not penetrate any deeper than the bottom of the hole. This confirmed the suspicion that leftovers from the broken termination was still in the bore hole. Hence the drillers put magnetic cutters on the drill and managed to successfully fish up the termination debris in a couple of attempts. After the bore hole had been cleaned up, drilling was attempted again – and this time with success. Hence drilling was resumed and a total of three nice ice cores were drilled during the late afternoon and evening.
This of course meant that ice core logging also had to be restarted, and that the film crew in camp finally got the chance to document the whole drilling and logging process – just in time before their scheduled departure from EGRIP on tomorrow’s flight.
Otherwise worked progressed with PP measurements and ice core processing in the science trench, as well as CFA measurements continuing. The surface program continues as planned while the drone underwent maintenance.

What we did today:

Successfully recovering lost parts of broken termination from bore hole.
Drilling three ice cores.
Logging two ice cores, logged depth 1946m 4. Ice core processing of 42 bags, last bag 1771.
Station for atmospheric moisture sampling and isotopic measurement is active.
CFA measurements, last bag 1685.
PP measurements ongoing in science trench, last bag 1711.
Filming for EGRIP virtual reality tour and photographing in camp.
Maintenance on drone.
Palletizing MAGPIE equipment.
Grooming skiway after yesterday’s blow.

EGRIP population is 40.

Weather: Wind between 6kts and 13kts from SW to S. Sunny spells in the morning turning cloudy later in the day. Temperatures from -19°C to -8°C.

FL, Bo Vinther