NEEM icelympic games are on
Heavy beam: The quadruple, broken heavy beams of the drill trench roof has been cut and is about to be lifted by the crane. In the bottom centre, the bore hole casing pipe can be seen pointing up. The picture gives an impression on just how much snow has accumulated on the drill trench roof since 2008 when it was laid on the surface.
None of us here at NEEM can follow the Olympic games,so we have created NEEM icelympic games.
As the real Olympic games, these run over a fortnight. Saturday evening we had the opening ceremony, and Sunday we had the first competition: 50 m sprint in the snow barefooted. Results: 1st Alexandra, 2nd Bo and 3rd Peter. Tomorrows competition will be ice block throwing. However the games only took 20 minutes, so the rest of the time we worked.
Today was pleasant. We could see everything, the sun was shining and there was little wind.
With the removal of the trench roof and the backfilling in progress, we are getting past a rather tricky and potentially dangerous job. From the snow surface to the bottom of the inclined trench was a more than 14 m drop; but today the drop is reduced to 6 m, and tomorrow we hope to remove the drop completely.
What we have done today:
1. Air sampling program
2. Building snow hill for carpenter garage
3. Setting bore hole casing to vertical
4. Backfilling inclined trench in drill trench floor
5. Backfilling drill trench in progress. Casing is capped during this
6. Japanese and isotope pit study
Weather: -3°C to -9°C. Wind 5-10 kn from S and SE. Scattered clouds in the morning, later clear. In the evening: Fog.
FL, J.P. Steffensen