Getting into routine again

The ice core loggers are discussing how to improve the handling of the freshly drilled ice cores after a core got rather broken during the extraction from the drill. A perfect alignment of the drill and the core trough and cold temperatures are believed to be the most important factors.

Camp is getting into routine again. All have been busy today and logging, CFA and drilling is nearly back to the ‘normal’ high production with the new teams. The drilling depth is over 1110m (logged depth) and the ice is still very brittle due to the high pressure in the air bubbles. We are all the time improving the way to handle the core to be as gentle as possible to the new cores. The just drilled cores are placed in the core buffer for 10 days before they are logged. It is possible to divide the cores in 1.65 m sections during the logging without further damage to the cores.

What we have done today:

1.Drilling with the NEEM long drill: 29.45 m. Drillers depth: 1099.34 m
2. Logging 20.47 m of core. Logging depth 725.9 m
3. CFA analysis: 17.60 m. Depth: 332.75 m.
4. Building garage
5. Preparing shallow drill
6. Preparing the firn-gas and ice structure activities
7.Build table and side supports in top office
8. Cleaned cargo from the surface

Ad.1: Driller’s Report July 13, 2009: “Stable drilling throughout the day produced 29.45 meters over nine runs.  Throughout each run the cutting pitch continues to gradually decrease from about 2.7 mm to about 1.3 mm.
Maintenance was required on the pump to replace the knobs which hold the pump fast against the inner “sleeve”.  One cleaning run in the morning collected 6 kg of the excess chips left in the hole during the previous day.  The inclination has now begun to steadily decrease and is down to 1.83 degrees.

Ad. 5. After assembling the drill there turned out to be a failure in the electronic system. Aksel found the short and repaired the control box within few hours.

Weather: A warm and sunny day with temperatures between -8°C and -4°C.
Wind has been between 9 and 14 kn from S to SE. We have had slight haze from time to time.

FL, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen

 
Photo to the left: Happy driller. JiWoong from Korea is now fully trained as a NEEM driller. His good humor (and fantastic hat) is very much appreciated in the camp.
Photo to the right: The frame of the third garage went up this afternoon in few hours.
Sverrir, Tim and our doctor Lizzie must have been garage constructors in their earlier life!