You are currently viewing July 9: Deep drilling terminated, a shallow drilling initiated and mega trench project completed
The Mega Trench is indeed living up to its name by now. Probably it is the largest hole in central Greenland. A few storms with snow drift and it will be gone. We have been lucky that those winds stayed relatively low while sampling was ongoing.

July 9: Deep drilling terminated, a shallow drilling initiated and mega trench project completed

Today the deep drillers logged the borehole down to 25m depth to investigate how inclined the casing is in the top part and how large the kink at 15m dept is. It was judged too risky to attempt lowering the logger further down as the borehole troll may not be done playing trick with us and could grab the logger with its fiberglass hooks. Having proof of concept that there is access to the liquid-filled deep part of the borehole, this is the right time to stop experimenting, go home and come up with innovative ideas for next year about how the squeezed casing situation can best be handled. Hence, packing of the last drill equipment was initiated and no further borehole action will take place this season. The lid is put on the borehole.

 

The shallow drill was once again put in action 1.45 km south of camp where an 80m deep drilling has been initiated. The resulting shallow core will extend the iconic deep GRIP ice core from 1992 ‘up to surface’ (ie cover the precipitation that has been deposited since then) and set the current arctic warming into long-term perspective. Because of the disturbed stratigraphy related to the old GRIP camp that is lying some 15-20m below of our feet, it matters where the core is drilled. By choosing a location 1.45 to the south we are certain to be several hundreds of meters away from the old GRIP skiway and we do hope that there has not been too much activity or camp-induced snow drift out there.

 

What we did this Thursday:

 

  1. Deep drilling terminated with 25m logging of the upper casing
  2. Shallow drilling of GRIP 2026 S1, 1.45 km south of main dome initiated
  3. Moved all food from cook’s freezer into large storage trench
  4. Folded two large balloons used for storage trench
  5. Mega trench sampling finalized. 3500 firn samples taken.
  6. Took down WeatherPort number 2 (1 out of 5)
  7. Tested backup generator

 

Ad. 2: Location of GRIP 2026 S1 core: N 72.566166 W 37.657509 Elev: 3225 m

 

Weather: Mostly overcast. Wind 4-14 kt from S and W. Temp -12C to -8C. A few snow showers during the day. A good day for shallow drilling.

FL, Anders Svensson

Eliza showing a different side of herself. The Weatherport tents need to be freed from ice before they can be taken down.
Folding the large, heavy balloon that was used to make the large storage trench requires a lot of manpower m/f.
Anders with his first ice core at the GRIP 26 S1 site.