July 12, 2023

Preparations for receiving the ski-equipped C130 (Skier)

Sepp drilling firn cores though the roofs.


The next mission is planned for Friday and it is 3 weeks since we had contract with the rest of the World. We receive fresh food, send the ice cores out and exchange personal. This is certainly an event that involves all in camp and in Kangerlussuaq. The Skiers arrived in Kangerlussuaq today, one day delayed. Good news. The rock drill arrived with the Skiers from USA. Also good news. The main load from camp will be a Flexmobil track vehicle. The weight is 11.000 lbs and the width is 270 cm… it just fits into the skier. Sverrir will drive it into the Skiers in camp and Jørgen Peder will drive it out in Kangerlussuaq. We are looking forward to this event on Friday.
In camp, Sepp and Jinhwa have been drilling firn cores through the roof of the entrance to the trenches and the drill trench too. This is preparations for next year when we have to break a hole through the roof to extend the borehole casing to the surface and fill snow around the casing to stabilize it. We plan to keep the access to the borehole open for future investigations.

What we did today:

  1. Borehole camera and bailer lowered to bottom of drill hole.
  2. Repaired top plug and slip ring on drill again.
  3. Direction calibration of new DK logger.
  4. Drilled cores through the inclined entrance and drill trench to check roof thickness.
  5. Agreed on cargo to camp and from camp for the July 14th mission.
  6. Placed AWI and Flex-boxes on retro pallet.
  7. Finalized documentation of ice core boxes to retro 2023.
  8. Moved drill boxes to the surface.
  9. Started building an igloo.

Ad 1: Again, the electrical system shorted at the depth 2500 m. We got the borehole camera videos as the camera is battery powered but the plan to fill the bailer with the bottom liquid to investigate the properties failed.

Weather today: Low clouds all day. Wind between 1 kt and 7 kt turning from n to WSW. Temperatures between -12°C and -4°C.

FL, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen

The measures of the Flexmobil to leave camp.

Dorthe doing the directional calibration of the new logger with the new logger calibration stand.