Daily reports from the NGRIP-camp - week 24, 2003
Monday, June 9th
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| Daily life |
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Lovely weather with blue sky, -6 degrees during the day and a little wind.
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| Science |
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The deep drilling continues and further 37 cm ice core has been recovered.
The aim right now is not only to get
ice core but also to clean the hole from glycol slush.
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| Logistics |
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Snow is still being moved from the tents in camp
and one of the big sleeping tents has now been dug out.
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Tuesday, June 10th
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| Daily life |
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The lack of wind made sitting outside with coffee quite pleasant (-7 degrees).
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| Science |
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After cleaning the drill hole for slush it seems that the glycol has been removed now. Preparations are now made for drilling with and ethanol-water solution to melt chips from the drilling in order to prevent them from getting stuck. In other drill projects good experiences has been obtained with this kind of drilling liquid.
Shallow drilling is now at 90 m and processing continues.
The ECM measurement program has been moved to a new computer after updating the program files.
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| Logistics |
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The Herman Nelson heater has been repaired and maintained.
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Wednesday, June 11th
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| Daily life |
Weather is overcast, a little windy and it snows.
New pictures
from camp has been posted on the website.
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| Science |
Preparations for drilling with the ethanol-water solution (EWS) are still going on.
The solution is transported to the bottom of the drill hole in a tank, which has the possibility of heating the liquid on the way down to prevent it from freezing.
The processing of the shallow core is now at 50 m, and a melt layer from 1889 has been found in 36.05 m depth. This melt layer can be found in almost all greenlandic ice cores and is a good tool for dating the core.
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| Logistics |
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The red sleeping dome has now a new adress.
It was towed to its new postion with all furniture and beds inside without any problems.
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Thursday, June 12th
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| Daily life |
Weather is still overcast with wind and snow, the visibility is poor.
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| Science |
The deep drilling is now going on again after the cleaning of the hole for slush. Four runs have been made and have yielded 1.66 m of core, the longest piece was 89 cm. There is still some slush on top of the cores and the chips chamber is filled every run. The drillers will now examine the slush and look at the ice crystals under a microscope.
Shallow drilling is now at 104 m depth and the processing has identified the ash from the know volcanic eruption from Laki, Iceland (1783) in 61.45 m depth.
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| Logistics |
The hole after the red sleeping dome has been filled and two pallets with empty fuel drums have been prepared for return to Kangerlussuaq.
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Friday, June 13th
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| Daily life |
The sky has cleared and the visibility is good again.
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| Science |
There has been drilled 1.16 m of deep core. The slush amount in the hole is now lower than previously. The core has been logged to 3004.52 m depth.
Thin sections have been prepared from the slush in order to study the crystal structure. Thin sections are made by attaching the ice to a glass plate and cut it with a very sharp knife (microtome knife) until it is about 0.5 mm thick. After this the plate is placed between crossed polarisors and illuminated with white light. Ice is a birefringent material, so the individual ice crystals are seen with each their own colour and are now easy to distinguish from eachother. On the wbepage with pictures from the 2001 season a thin section of the deep ice core with large crystals can be seen.
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| Logistics |
The main dome has been cleaned and yet another heat blower has been repaired and is now functional.
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Saturday, June 14th
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| Daily life |
Blue sky with good visibility and a little wind.
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| Science |
The drillers only made a single run in order to make sure the hole was clean. Tomorrow they will attempt drilling with the thermal drill.
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| Logistics |
The skiway has been groomed.
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Sunday, June 15th
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| Daily life |
The temperature has dropped to -13 to -20 degrees.
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| Science |
Attempts have been made with the thermal drill, which was tested at the surface prior to lowering it into the hole. There is still some alcohol solution at the bottom of the hole so a short developed in the drill head.
The seismic station has been checked and works fine.
The shallow core has been processed to 86.35 m.
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| Logistics |
The skiway and apron are now completely groomed and ready to recieve aircraft.
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Continue to Week 25
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