Skiers for Science

Three skiers on the way to sampling in clean snow area. Kristian, HC (forgot skies?), and Helen.

Every morning the last 5 days a group of three skiers went out to sample surface snow at 29 positions in the clean snow area. The purpose is to investigate if and then how the isotopic composition of the upper snow pack changes over time with or without snowfall. As the sampling is done in the clean snow zone no skidoo driving is allowed and so it is convenient to do the sampling on skis.

Skiing for recreation has always been popular at ice core camps, but Skiing for Science is a new concept.

In the afternoon, a team went out to the ice stream shear zone to drill a third core for the ETracer Project.

In the drill trench the construction of the ‘inclined trench’ has begun. The inclined trench is a 7m deep pit cut into the floor of the trench that allows the drill tower and drill to turn from horizontal to vertical position when an ice core has been retrieved.

To improve the physical and psychological working environment at EGRIP an outdoor living room complete with three sofas and a coffee table has been installed in front of main dome.

What we have done today:

1.    Removed 6 tons of snow blocks from  the inclined trench in the drill trench
2.    Covered melt head with silica oil to prevent leaking at Swiss drill test site.
3.    Drilled 11m shallow core EGRIP 2016 EGG CORE 3 with hand auger
4.    Resampled snow surface profile in the clean snow area
5.    Increased cosiness factor with sofa installation outside main dome

Ad. 3: The 11 m EGRIP 2016 – EGG core 3 for the ETracer Project was drilled from the bottom of a 2.20 m deep pit located some 14 km NW of camp at N 75.7140 W 36.3300. The pit is covered with plywood and marked with a flag.

Weather today: Overcast in the morning, broken clouds during the day, and overcast again from late afternoon. Temp. -6 °C to -14 °C. Wind 0-10 kt starting out NE and shifting abruptly to NW at noon.

FL, Anders Svensson