The brave drillers

A small cartoon of Olivier releasing the inner core barrel from the deep ice core drill.

Drilling a deep ice core is actually a very ‘wet’ affair. The drill liquid is a mixture of coconut oil extract (Estisol 240) and Coasol. It is non-hazardous, not unhealthy, and it has a low environmental impact. When the drill surfaces with an ice core in it, the inner core barrel is parted from the drill in order to take out the ice core. It is a quite wet affair for the drillers and they often become rather soaked. The liquid that surfaces with the drill is collected and reused.

What we have done today:

1. Drilling with the NEEM long drill: 27.48 m. Drillers depth: 1296.62 m.
2. Logging 26.92 m of core. Logging depth: 1309.46 m.
3. CFA analysis: 27.33 m. Depth: 482.35 m.
4. Repairing centrifuge for recycling drill liquid.
5. Shallow drilling at the air-firn village. Present depth 74 m. Air-sampling has been done at the depth 74 m.
6. Shallow drilling at the second site: NEEM2009S1. Depth 68 m.
7. Building the last core buffer in the science trench.

Ad 1: Driller’s Report July 22, 2009:
“Good drilling all day with one unexplained short run. Second centrifuge needs work. Apparently upon purchase the inside was all rusted out making the recycled liquid unusable in the bore hole. We even found some old underwear from when it worked at a møntvask in a previous life. Sverrir and Axel are repairing the old centrifuge.”

Weather: A very nice and sunny day with blue sky and night temperatures between Tuesday and Wednesday down to -15°C and day temperatures up to -3°C. Wind: 3-10 kn from SE.

FL, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen