The NEEM post office

Still summer time at NEEM.

Although many analyses of the ice core are made at NEEM, most of the core is actually split into samples that are packed in ice core boxes and shipped to different labs for analysis. Discrete sampling is made for among others stable water isotopes, gas analyses, cosmogenic isotopes, dust and trace elements, and physical property studies. The gas sampling program is a case of its own as the gas piece is sub-sampled and distributed to 10 different labs according to a cutting scheme as complicated and detailed as a Swiss train time table. The hundreds of ice core boxes that are stuffed with thousands of ice core pieces and samples during the season have final destinations in South Korea, China, Japan, Australia, and several locations in the US and Europe. It’s a busy post office.

Drilling: 7.78 m, drillers depth: 2402.30 m
Logging: 7.82 m, loggers depth: 2418.61 m
Processing: bag 1320-1359 (22.00 m) 723.80 m
CFA: bag 3698-3737 (22.00 m) 2055.35 m

What we have done today:

1. Drilling and core logging ice.
2. Processed deep ice cores.
3. CFA measurements.
4. Making orders for next flight period in 10 days
5. Preparing ice bar and pancakes for tomorrow

Ad 1. Drilling has been slowing down over the last days, as it has generally been difficult to produce long cores. Possibly a sign of warm ice. This evening, however, two long cores were drilled, and the chips appear different from previous runs, so let’s see what tomorrow brings.

Weather: Clear blue sky, winds up to 10 knots from SSE and temperatures -15°C to -5°C.

FLs Dorthe Dahl-Jensen and Anders Svensson