We celebrate several things

The CFA 400m group. From left to right: Liz, Simon, Gideon, Kerstin, Daiana and Helle.

There were two birthdays to celebrate: It is Martins birthday and he was treated with a birthday song and one of his favourite deserts, apple pie, baked by Sarah and Louise.
Then we also celebrated someone somewhat older: The republic of Iceland. The Icelanders decided on this day in 1944 to cease being a kingdom and became a republic. In support of the Icelandic nation all camp members yelled: "Áfram Ísland!"
(Go ahead Iceland!) three times.
Finally, we celebrated the six CFA people. They have passed the 400m mark in CFA analysis this year. This is good for the NEEM project, as we have now continuous measurements of ice core chemistry, of microparticle concentration, of black carbon, of green house gases and of water isotopes spanning from our climatic period into the coldest part of the last glacial, or some 20,000 years.

What we have done today:
1. Drilling and logging.
2. Processed ice cores: 42 bags, from 3760 to 3801.
3. Measuring CFA. Measured 22 m. CFA depth: 1694.55 m.
4. Working on skiway with Pistenbully.
5. Zig-zag and lengthwise grooming on apron and taxiway.

Ad.1: Drillers report:
The cutters required sharpening and we are adjusting to the new pitch after remounting them. For the first four runs of the day the pitch was about 1.5 mm. We tried to increase this slightly to 2.2 mm to regain our sweet spot capable of drilling with negative cutter load. We landed at 2.5 mm instead for the last three runs which may just be working fine enough, but again at the limit of the power available once we reach about 2.5 meters. We can continue past this mark to gain 2.5 to 3.3 meters per run. We will continue this in the morning.

Driller's depth: 2128.0 meters. Logging depth: 2142.74 m.

Ad.2: Today in the ECM we detected a climate transition which occurred 84.750 years ago. In NGRIP this transition was found at 2687 m depth and at NEEM it was found at 2086 m depth. Our model prediction of the depth of this layer is 2110 m, so the layer is found 24 m higher than predicted. We should begin to encounter ice from the Eemian around 2260 m. It now begins to be very exiting.

Weather: Overcast in the morning, then becoming fine. Temp. -10 °C to -8 °C,
2-17 knots from NW turning to SE. Visibility: Unrestricted.

FL, J.P. Steffensen

Sonia and Hans Christian are setting up sampling equipment in the middle of the snowy weather yesterday.