Daily reports from the NGRIP-camp - week 26 year 2001
Monday, June 25th
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| Daily life |
|
| Science |
| Today’s drilling operation was slightly too exciting: During the night
shift the drillers were pulling up the drill after a difficult run. After
pulling up about 150 m, the winch suddenly failed without warning and the
drill started a free fall downward in the hole. The winch brake was quickly
applied, but the downward speed of the drill was too great so the brake
disk was shattered to pieces, which flew around the drill trench. Luckily
the drillers were not hit by any of these, and they now hurried towards
the winch and after some time were able to engage the manual brake. By
then, the drill had hit the hole bottom at 2982 m and the cable had spooled
down another 80 m. The drillers now notified the field leader and other
members of the drilling team of the situation and slow pulling upwards
was started again. Everything went OK and the drill was slowly pulled to
surface. A kink in the cable was observed at 71 m depth and one of the
cutters was slightly damaged, but apart from this the drill was in normal
condition. The brake disk on the winch motor was, however, completely shattered,
and it has to be replaces before drilling can continue. |
| Logistics |
| Pallets are prepared for tomorrow’s flight. |
Tuesday, June 26th
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| Daily life |
| The now unemployed drillers were doing their community service in terms
of erecting the volleyball net, cooking, and starting to build a new grill
kit. |
| Science |
| No drilling today. 100 m of the damaged cable was cut, and the drill
was reconnected to the cable. |
| Logistics |
| No plane today. The flight mission has been delayed for tomorrow due
to a broken plane. |
Wednesday, June 27th
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| Daily life |
| It’s always an enervating situation when the planes to the camp are
delayed. Everybody have been working hard to pack boxes and pallets, hourly
weather reports have been given since early in the morning, the toothbrush
has been packed, and everybody’s waiting, and nothing happens. Delays are
usually due to either bad weather (see below), or technical problems like
yesterday. One of the main activities in connection to the flights is when
ice is to go out to Sonde. The ice core boxes are normally stored in the
science trench were the temperature is appropriate and there is no sun
shine. Because of their brownish color the boxes are absorbing so much
heat from the sun when they are at surface that the ice would melt if the
boxes were kept there. Therefore the boxes are kept in the trench until
a few hours before departure of the plane. When the boxes have been brought
to surface with the lift they are put on a pallet and carefully fastened
with nets and cargo straps. If now the flight is delayed, as it happened
yesterday and today, all the boxes have to go down in the trench again,
in order not to be heated too much in the sun. The boxes weigh up to a
100 kg a piece, so the personnel has a real workout. Today 18 boxes should
have been on the plane. |
| Science |
| No drilling today. Spare parts are awaited for the winch. |
| Logistics |
| Today’s flight turned out pretty unfortunate: The plane departed on
schedule from Sonde at 5.17 pm. At 5.45 pm a bank of ground fog rolled
in at NGRIP, and when the plane reached the camp the sight was too marginal
for landing and the skier had to return. The plane could be seen briefly
from camp. |
Thursday, June 28th
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| Daily life |
|
| Science |
|
| Logistics |
| Today’s flight turned out very unfortunately: The plane departed on
schedule from Sonde at 5.17 pm. At 5.45 pm a bank of ground fog rolled
in at NGRIP, and when the plane reached the camp the sight was too marginal
for landing and the skier had to return. The plane could be seen briefly
from camp. Next try will be tomorrow. |
Friday, June 29th
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| Daily life |
|
| Science |
| The brake on the winch motor was repaired with the spares that came
up with the plane yesterday. After the repair the new connection between
drill and cable was tested with a pull of 1450 kg. The test went well and
everything is now ready for continuing drilling. |
| Logistics |
|
Saturday, June 30th
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| Daily life |
|
| Science |
| The bore hole was filtered and a 55 cm long core was drilled. During
the drilling it was observed that the temperature in the electronics section
of the drill was lower that usual, and with the drill back on the surface
it was discovered that some drill liquid had entered the drill electronics.
It was therefore decided to exchange a seal to the drills pressure chamber
before continuing drilling. |
| Logistics |
|
Sunday, July 1st
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| Daily life |
|
| Science |
| The broken pressure seal in the drill was exchanged and the drill went
down the hole again. It was however only possible to drill 20 cm core in
this first drilling, as an approximately 1 m thick layer of ice chips had
collected at the bottom of the hole. Those chips came up with the drill
on top of the core, so now the hole is supposedly nicely clean at the bottom. |
| Logistics |
| There are two snow smelters in camp, which are used to melt snow for
drinking water, laundry, shower, dishes etc. Over the last days it has
been noticed that water is disappearing from the large snow smelter during
the night, although no water is being used in camp. It is therefore feared
that the tank or some connection is leaking. The snow smelter was dug free
of snow and apparently there is there is a small leakage at the bottom
of the tank, which will have to be closed. |
Continue to Week 27
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