Today the main task for the drilling was to free the stuck drill from the edge at 15m depth. After various attempts, the drill fortunately came free. Later different tools were lowered into the borehole to monitor, ream and collect casing debris. The PFAS team made good progress and reached 9 m depth at their site. On the dome, cables were mounted to be connected with the battery pack. In the late afternoon, the AWI Basler Polar 6 plane arrived to camp from Kanger with Johannes, Maria and Nora from AWI, Iben from UCPH and three Canadian crew members, Jim, Jill and Mimi. Camp population is now 27 and tent city has grown to 8 units. In the coming weeks, the Basler plane will be used to deploy the UCPH shallow drill at different locations as part of the ICELINK project.
What we did this Monday:
- Freed stuck drill, reamed and monitored casing
- Received POLAR 6 with ICELINK team
- Worked on main storage trench
- Assembled battery Viessman cabin
- Connected solar panel cables
- Sorted food in cook’s freezer
- Continued Covax drilling at PFAS site to 9 m depth
Driller’s update:
On Sunday, we mounted the 186mm concrete cutting bit to the drill and added a second antitorque section to create extra friction for cutting. Our aim was to remove fiberglass from the broken seams in the casing by cutting them off and potentially catching them in the 40cm long drill bit. Our casing has severely damaged seams (spiral fractures) every 6m below approx. 30m depth. Using a lot of force, we managed to get past a seam at 15m, which we deemed not broken. What our pre-survey with a downhole camera did not reveal was that we have a kink in the casing around 15m. With a lot of difficulties, we managed to retrieve the drill and get it back up past the damaged casing and kink at 15m on Monday afternoon. Later on Monday, we attached a Covax auger to the bottom of the drill and later a conical reamer. None of these managed to penetrate the bottom or collect any of the broken fiberglass shards downhole. We now have all the casing pieces and other material downhole consolidated at a potential ice plug at 51m depth, which is strong enough to withstand our smashing attempts with the drill.
Weather: Overcast all day, but with fair-to-good visibility. Snowfall in the evening. Temp. from -16C to -13C. Wind 2-8 kts from S turning NW.
FL, Anders Svensson
