Second day of good processing and drilling

Through a hole in the drill trench roof, blocks from the excavation of the cooling tunnel are hoisted to the surface and driven away.

On this fine day, drilling and processing continued at a good rate. Today the core containing the volcanic eruption of 1259 AD was processed. The core, we now process, contains snow that fell when the Norse were thriving in Greenland, at the end of the medieval warm period. In Greenland, the medieval warm period was 1.5 degrees warmer on average than year 1990.

What we have done today:

1. Drilling with the NEEM long drill.
2. Logging. Last bag: 677. Depth: 372.35 m.
3. Processing 28.05 m ice cores. Processed depth: 184.25 m
4. Grooming practice with repaired Flexmobil.
5. Lifted 2008 cargo line to new snow hill. All pallets with cargo now on surface.
6. Excavated cooling tunnel. It is now 6 m long, and we are half way.

Ad.1: This is how the drillers report looks today:
“Stable drilling most of the day. The pitch was getting too large so Henry mounted 0.01 mm shims. Lately we have observed chips on the top of the core. The heavy coasol seems to stick to the fine chips with increasing pressure. One of the runs was heavily disturbed by chips coming down the hole. Normal weight of spun chips for 3.5 m core is 23 kg. The disturbed run gave 25 kg due to the falling chips.
We drilled 27.65 m in 8 runs; driller’s depth 362.76 m.”

Ad.6: The drillers began excavating the tunnel during the day. Between 20.30 and 23.30, two teams of volunteers continued the excavation.

Weather: Fine all day, late evening overcast and light snow. -20 °C to -10 °C, 5-10 knots mainly from SSW.
Visibility: Unrestricted.

FL, J.P. Steffensen