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Julien and Chantal enjoying an early morning fog-bow. (Photo by Julien).

June 04: “Making the most of a beautiful day”

With the scaffold set in place yesterday, Charlotte, Jonathan and Rahul were all set to make good use of todays beautiful weather for mounting more solar panels on the dome, and sure enough, by evening 10 more panels could be seen on the dome! Sepp likewise used the calm conditions and the snowblower to both dig and cover more cable trenches all day and evening, only interrupted by a broken shear bolt, that Thomas replaced in short order. Again today, Bo gave a bit of assistance with the cable balloons to learn the system. In the drill tent there was also major progress with flooring, further enlargement of the inclined trench and the tower base (see report below). In the cable duct between the dome and the generator, Thomas and Kevin strategically positioned some extra lines of string and routed the backup generator cable. After all was said and done, Anders had prepared yet another splendid meal for us, that we all enjoyed in the dome.

 

What we did this Thursday:

  1. Completed bulk removal of snow from inclined trench.
  2. Nearly completed geoblock flooring in the drill tent.
  3. Began installation of ERV in drillers cabin.
  4. Started positioning the drill tower base.
  5. Routed power cable to backup generator.
  6. Repaired snow blower.
  7. Mounted 10 solar panels on the dome, 22 panels are now in place.
  8. Continued making power line trenches.
  9. Made a series of solar radiation measurements: On the surface, in the snow and in the drill tent.

 

Re 1-4: Drillers’ report:

Julien and Chantal completed the bulk removal of snow from the inclined trench. Geoblock flooring is nearly complete. Everyone in the drill team took shifts as they had time. James began installing the ERV in the driller’s cabin. James and Grant began positioning the drill tower base. This is an especially challenging task because, unlike most drilling projects, we need to align the tower with the top of the casing. The casing is approximately 6 degrees from plumb and we projected the final location pretty well when placing the timber foundation. However, we still used the full 9cm of “slop” we built in.

 

Weather: A beautiful sunny day with low winds. Temp. from -20C to -11C. Wind 0-6kts, turning from SW to ESE before noon and then further to ENE in the evening.

FL, Bo Vinther

Rahul, Charlotte and Jonathan, all geared up in the morning for mounting solar panels, By the end of the day almost twice as many panels were in place on the dome! (Photo by Bo).
Grant and James in the foreground working on the base of the deep tower, which is now in place. In the background Chantal, Kevin, and Anders are working on installing the geoblocks on the ground, to make the floor more GRIPpy. Julien, as usual, behind the camera, taking a break after finalizing the excavation of the inclined trench.
The team effort of 2 days of ice blocks mining. The inclined trench for the deep drill is now mostly dug out and our ice-block-mine is thus exhausted. Fine tuning of the walls is still pending. (Photo by Julien).