Happy drillers with first core, 1.6+ meters of smooth drilling with the intermediate drill.
June 18, 2024
Happy drillers with first core, 1.6+ meters of smooth drilling with the intermediate drill.
Today the first ice cores were drilled in the white tent with the new intermediate drill setup. More than 1.6 m core was drilled in a first run and 1.1 m in a second run. The ice core is contaminated as it contains the old floor of the white tent from before it was lifted up on a new hill, but the important point here is that the drilling has been started successfully. Now a few tweaks to cutters/shoes/chips collection are needed before real production mode can begin. After drilling, the core is being logged, water isotope samples are being taken, the electrical conductivity of the core is measured in high resolution and the density of the cores will be measured. In the deep-drill trench Sverrir and Sepp were pulling the super heavy winch towards the ramp. It is tricky because there is no access for large machinery so it requires quite some old-fashioned man power to move the winch. Knut’s team went out of camp on skidoos to do some first radar measurements in the late afternoon, already here on their first day in camp.
What we did today:
Weather today: Nice and sunny all day except in the evening where it became overcast. Temperatures from -16°C to -6°C. Wind 0-12 kt from S turning W.
Nicholas, Iben, Grant and Mori have finished digging the 4.5 m deep inclined trench (photos from yesterday).
Initiating the drilling from the bottom of the inclined trench.
The loggers are not ready for cores yet.... Guess we stop drilling again.