After the late-night mission to Site A, the GEUS team decided to have a day without flying Saturday, getting some rest and a chance to get cargo organized. Peter and Chris even found time to help out Rahul with preparing a fabulous Saturday dinner for all of us: A starter of Mala Cream Shrimp Dimsum and kebab. And thai cashew chicken and fried rice for the main course, simply delicious! After dinner we all just enjoyed each other’s company, it is always so nice to friends visiting here on the ice sheet. Otherwise, Saturday was supposed to be a flight day here at GRIP, with the 109th Airlift Wing having scheduled an LC-130 flight to our camp. Thus, we were all set, with a well groomed skiway, with markers standing tall and free of snow, and our cargo and fuel handling team at the ready. But unfortunately, technical problems meant that the plane could not land at GRIP, and thus had to go back to Kangerlussuaq after circling camp. We will have to try again Monday.
Sunday started with our traditional exquisite brunch, after which the GEUS Twin Otter made a short flight to Summit Camp, to put up a weather station. A quick flight, so they all made it back to camp again just in time for Anders’ opening his fantastic GRIP Pizzeria, another Sunday tradition. Otherwise, the day went with the drillers continued work on the issue of the damaged casing (see report below), and the solar panel team digging an outhouse pit, as the wind was too high for the dome panel mounting to continue. As the skiway was full of fresh snow from some 18 hours of snow showers, Thomas was back in the Pistenbully grooming skiway again, in anticipation of Mondays flight. Finally, Carlos also continued the luminescence measurements here at GRIP.
What we did this Weekend:
- Dispatched and received the GEUS Twin Otter for a mission to Summit.
- Prepared to receive Skier 61 and watched Skier 61 circle camp.
- Groomed entire skiway.
- Inspected and cleared all skiway flags of frost and snow.
- Continued work on storage trench.
- Made a broaching hammer for the damaged casing.
- Worked on cleaning sharp edges off the damaged casing.
- Dug fresh pit and moved first outhouse to this new position.
- Did luminescence measurements.
- Had a cozy Saturday dinner party together with the GEUS crew.
Re 6-7: Drillers’ report:
A quick update on the casing after work this weekend: We made a “broaching hammer” to clean any sharp edges off the fractured casing. The status of the borehole is that every seam between ~30m to 47m has serious damage. Some seams above 30 are beginning to show signs of damage. The broaching hammer was quite successful at knocking the sharp edges off the fracture creases. During the broaching, we created a blockage of fiberglass pieces (we believe these are the chippings from the sections above) at a depth of about 44m. This is in the middle of a 5m casing section, where there is no damage, so this is just a collection of chippings. Perhaps a tight helical delamination that wrapped around the ID. The blockage is tight but can be moved, ~20cm per impact by the hammer. We left it in this “safe” location until we decide how to remove it.
Weather: The weekend was mainly cloudy with many snow showers. Temp. from -15C to -5C. Wind 0-13kts with windy periods mainly during the day and calm during night, mainly from W and NW.
FL, Bo Vinther
