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Daily reports from the NGRIP-camp - week 25 year 2001
Monday, June 18th |
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| Daily life |
| It is beautiful summer weather: blue sky, no wind, and temperatures up to -6 C. The four o'clock tea is moved outside. |
| Science |
| Drilling continues, and since yesterday a total of almost 4 meters
have been drilled. The drilling depth is now 2965.83 metres.
The new ice core has been processed to a depth of 2958.45 metres. The ice cores are kept in a buffer for three days, in order to let them adjust to the surface temperature and pressure conditions, and to allow drill fluid to evaporate. |
| Logistics |
| A quiet day with nothing but normal maintenance of all the camp vehicles. |
Tuesday, June 19th |
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| Daily life |
| After a little morning sunshine, the day brought clouds with some snow. After being busy last week, the camp is now quiet, and everyone are busy with their different tasks. 15 persons are now in camp. A team of two persons are going out on skidoo to do measurements up to 60 km from camp. One of the hot topics in camp today is their (repeated) problems with the skidoos. Today one skidoo broke down 60 km from camp and was towed 25 km back before the camp mechanic arrived and got it started again! |
| Science |
| Since yesterday, there have been six drill runs, but the cores are
still very short. In total 2.6 metres have been drilled since yesterday.
The problem is that the chips produced during drilling is packed too hard
in the drill. Problem is thought to be due to the high temperature, and
the large ice crytals. Yesterday, it was tried to drop a glycol pill into
the hole before drilling. There are still problems, and today a new pair
of "shoes" are made (supporting devices at the bottom of the drill).
Poisitions of poles are still being measured around the camp (see more from saturday june 16). Some of the poles were not extended in 1999, and only 10 cm of the poles are above the surface. They can only be found because the position is known with high precision from 1999, and because the ice movement in the area is approximately known. |
| Logistics |
| New people are trained as runway groomers. |
Wednesday, June 20th |
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| Daily life |
| Science |
| After trying different techniques yesterday, the drillers went back
to the normal procedure again after making small adjustments to the drill
cutters. The last run of the day was a little longer than the previous
(75 cm). In order to increase the productivity, the drillers are now working
in three-shifts all around the clock.
A 2 meter pit is made, and samples are taken for chemistry measurements. A shallow core will be drilled from the floor of the pit, in order to extend the data from the deep core all the way to the surface. |
| Logistics |
| The runway is groomed. |
Thursday, June 21st |
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| Daily life |
| A valve in the laundry machine was replaced after the discovery that 1500 l of water had been used for a single wash. The snow-shoveler had a hard time. |
| Science |
| The drilling continues slowly but steady. During the last 24 h five runs have been drilled yielding a total core length of 5,3 m. This is the second best result since drilling was started. The temperature at the bottom of the hole is now close to –5 C, and the pressure melting point of the ice is close to –2 C. The temperature gradient is about 3 C per 100 m, and there’s about 100 m more to drill, so it’s going to be interesting to see what will be found at the bottom. |
Friday, June 22nd |
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| Daily life |
| Science |
| This is not one of the better days. Only 1.8 m of ice core are drilled. After midnight one tries again to dump a glycol pill into the hole before drilling. This immediately rewards in form of a 1.2 m long core in one run. The effect of the glycol probably is to prevent icing of the knifes during drilling, but the glycol dumping does not always result in longer cores, so it’s a bit uncertain exactly how it works. |
| Logistics |
Saturday, June 23rd |
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| Daily life |
| Midsummer night was celebrated according to the rules:
- Everybody takes a shower before 7 pm. - Champagne and Swedish midsummer sinning at the bonfire. - The Core Dogs perform the NorthGRIP song in the underground ice bar: Melody: Proud Mary by Crudence Clearwater Revival: If you get stuck down in Sonde
Between the shitters cleaning
Drilling....
Life is tough for Northgrippers
Between Saturday's cooking
Drilling... If you break down the equipment
Enjoy washing the dishes
Drilling...
|
| Science |
| The bore hole depth is now 2981,35 m.
Out in the pit the upper part of a 20 m core is being hand drilled. The core is logged and 5 cm samples are taken along the core for delta-O18 and chemistry. |
| Logistics |
| There has been some snow drifting lately, so quite some grooming is necessary at the skiway before the flight mission scheduled for next Tuesday. |
Sunday, June 24th |
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| Daily life |
| Science |
| There was no drilling. Instead a tank was lowered to the bottom of
the hole in order to sample the drilling liquid. The density of the liquid
at the bottom of the hole is 936 kg/m3 at –32 C, which is close to the
ice density. If the drilling liquid density is too low there is a risk
that ice chips will accumulate at the bottom of the hole and this can impede
drilling. With the current density of the liquid it is not necessary to
bring down more heavy liquid. Instead the bore hole s cleaned with a filter
and 6 kg of slush are collected.
One of the associated projects, which has the goal of collecting continental dust from snow and firn, was terminated successfully today. The dust is being extracted by melting large quantities of snow and centrifuging the melt water to collect the dust. During the five weeks the project has been running more than four tons of snow and firn have been melted, resulting in a couple of hundred milligrams of dust. That is, the dust concentration in the ice is quite low. Some samples were taken from smaller ice cores that were drilled close to the camp. One of those samples cover ice from the years 1930-45, where one hopes to be able to determine if the dust in the inland ice is related to the strong dust storms, The Dust Bowl, that occurred in North America during this time. |
| Logistics |
| The packing down of the camp is slowly starting after the termination of the associated projects and one prepares for a forthcoming reduction in camp population. A couple of tents are taken down and ice core boxes are being packed. The camp is getting ready to receive the next plane, which is scheduled for next Tuesday. The skiway preparation goes on and on. |
Continue to Week 26
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