June 8+9, 2024

A sunny weekend and a birthday

Left: Setting up the new intermediate drill in the white tent. From left to right: Nicholas, Grant, Sverrir and Morihiro.


After last week’s flights, cargo has been sorted and the new crew is getting used to life on the ice cap. The main activities in camp are the continued clearing of the trenches, maintenance of the skiway for next weeks flights and the setting up of the new intermediate drill system in the white tent. ‘Intermediate’ refers to a drilling depth about one kilometre, as opposed to a shallow drilling that is typically to 100 m depth and a deep drilling that is to bedrock. We are excited about this new intermediate drill system that will allow to obtain ice cores that cover the most recent millennia without the need for setting up a large multi-year camp on the ice. The one-kilometre depth range is important for calibrating Greenland ice flow models and for drilling in smaller ice caps, among others. The drill that is developed by the Copenhagen group can be separated into smaller parts, for example if transport on smaller airplanes is required. The next step will be to spool on a one km long cable onto the winch. The ‘Saturday night’ celebration was postponed to Sunday night as we needed the newcomers to settle in first. We had a lovely pizza and Tiramisu menu followed by outdoor Volleyball by the most brave participants. Also, we moved Sepp’s birthday from Monday to Saturday so that we could have fresh strawberries for dessert. And Sepp got his birthday song in the field as so many times before (horn, chainsaw, ukulele).

What we did during the weekend:

  1. Worked on setting up intermediate drill system in white tent.
  2. Groomed load pad and skiway.
  3. Swapped fuel tanks and cleared up on the surface.
  4. Oil check on generator Sunday at 10.
  5. Celebrated Sepp’s upcoming birthday Saturday night.
  6. Celebrated Saturday night on Sunday night.

Weather over the weekend: Saturday was sunny and after a hazy night with the polar equivalent of a rainbow we had another sunny and calm Sunday great for outdoor work and hiking/skiing. Temp. from -16°C to -7°C. Wind: 0-8 kt from SE turning and SW.


FL, Anders Svensson

Iben brought fresh strawberries from Copenhagen and rhubarber from her mother's garten for Sepp's birthday that had to be shifted forward a few days.