An example of brittle ice with a lot of cracks in it.

The difficult brittle ice

It was a difficult day for the deep drilling that experienced many technical challenges last night and this morning. Most of the issues could be solved by our experienced team of drillers. At the end of the day, the production is somewhat lower than normal, but the drilled cores are still of very good quality. It appears that the drilling has now entirely passed below the difficult depth interval, where the high pressure air bubbles make the ice brittle. This brittle zone has thus ended earlier than expected, which is good news for the ice core analysis. There still remains some 100 m of brittle ice in the ice core buffer that may be logged this year. Today the loggers made a first careful attempt of logging and cutting some of that ice. Both logging and cutting turned out successful without introducing new cracks in the ice. If this continues the coming days, the plan is to log the remaining brittle ice, but to leave it for processing next year. Below the brittle zone the ice can be both logged and processed already this year.

What we did today:

1. Deep drilling 7.06 m. Drillers’ depth 1088.01 m
2. Firn gas drilling sampling to depth 11.8 m
3. Ice core processing bags 1448 – 1486, final depth: 817.30 m
4. Measurements in isotope laboratory, final depth: 560.45 m
5. Measurements in physical properties laboratory, final depth: 801.90 m
6. Water vapour sampling and measuring.
7. Careful logging and cutting of this years’ brittle ice 910.41 - 923.70 m
8. Checking safety equipment and survival kits in camp

Weather: Overcast the entire day. A few light snow showers. Temp. -10 ºC to -20 ºC. Wind: 4-10 kt from W turning N turning E.
Visibility: Mostly good.

FL, Anders Svensson