June 20, 2022

Shallow coring begins

A melt layer in the EGRIP S8 shallow core – likely dating back to the year 1889.


While we are still in the process of excavating the drill trench for the deep drilling, we did produce cores here at EGRIP for the first time this season: A total of 32m of shallow core just south of camp using the AWI shallow drill system. This marks the beginning of a shallow core campaign here, mainly focussing on the shear margin away from camp, but starting out with a drilling near camp. During today’s drilling Sepp, Johannes and Daniela manged to identify a very nice melt layer in the shallow core, probably from 1889, as this is a melt event found in cores from all over Greenland.
In the drill trench we have now reached a mode were the drillers cut ice blocks all day, and then all available hands show up an hour before lunch and dinner for the two daily “EGRIP fitness sessions”: Helping out with getting all the snow blocks moved through the trench and loaded onto a big sledge that is then pulled up the ramp by a Flexmobile. All to speed up the enormous excavation project we have on our hands.
On the Polypod cabin was made ready for the EGRIP radar system, while troubleshooting continued for the Greenland Exploration Rover and ApRES also took place in camp. The drone team managed to carry out a low-level flight despite the rather poor weather conditions prevailing at EGRIP these days. Snow sampling also continued.

What we did today:

  1. Excavation of drill trench by all available hands in camp.
  2. Extracting snow-blocks by Flexmobile-driven sledge up the new ramp.
  3. Servicing of generators and skidoos.
  4. Shallow coring of the EGRIP S8 core using the AWI drill system south of camp, depth 32m.
  5. ApRES tests and troubleshooting.
  6. Polypod assembled for the EGRIP radar system.
  7. Test and troubleshooting of the Greenland Exploration Rover.
  8. A low-level drone flight and snow sampling.

Weather today: Overcast with some intermittent snow. Temp. -15°C to -11°C. Wind: 7-16 kt from N turning NE during the day, Visibility: Variable, but poor during snow showers.

FL, Bo M. Vinther