Old and New Renland

Bo, Steff, and Trevor at the 1988 Renland drilling site. Steff was drilling an ice core at this exact spot 27 years ago! The present camp is seen at a distance in the background.

Today we had a flight mission with the Polar 6 aircraft. The plane arrived at 1pm and took off again just after 2pm.

In between the unloading and loading of the plane there was time for an ‘extra’ take-off and landing with no pay-load in order to groom the skiway and to give Kenneth a good filming opportunity. 

Bruce, Johannes, Sune, Dennis, Eliza, and Kenneth left camp together with some 1.7 tons of ice core. Five people returned or came to camp for the first time so the camp population is now 10 persons: Jakob, Sarah, Steff, Trevor, Bo, Lizzie, Andrea, Niccoló, Jan, and Anders. Everyone in camp is fine except we are currently living in many different time zones.

In the morning there was time for a visit to the old Renland drilling site where an ice core was retrieved to bedrock in 1988 approximately 1.8 km to the west of the present drill site.

The 1988 core shows that the deepest part of the Renland ice cap is more than 100,000 years old, so the ice cap covers the entire last glacial cycle. The 1988 core was, however, not drilled at an optimal location, so that is one of the reasons why we are now back to drill another core at this unique ice cap.

Drilling continued in good mode but at reduced working hours due to the flight mission which occurred during our night. Logging is at 379.97 m depth.

Weather: Starting out with clear blue sky and almost no wind, but clouds came in during the afternoon. It appears we received the airplane just at the right time. Temperatures -6°C to -13°C.

Renland FL, Anders Svensson