Cutting ice is not that easy

New equipment came to camp with Polar 6. Here a new circular saw has been mounted to cut the ice core into 55 cm pieces. Bo and Andrea cut the ice core with the newly installed saw.

The cutting of the ice cores into 55 cm long pieces has caused some troubles over the last days as the core started to break when the cut was made.

A new circular saw for cutting the ice cores was installed on the core processing table in the drill tent. This saw produces quite a smooth cut although it does remove a few millimeters of the core.

As drilling depth increases we are approaching the brittle zone, where the core is very fragile due to its content of high-pressure air bubbles. With an expected core length of 580 m the core will be rather brittle in the deepest part. And the deepest section is likely to contain an exciting profile of the last glacial period and possibly also ice from the last interglacial period. Therefore, much attention is paid to the core handling and it is of great importance that the processing does not comprise the core quality.

Drilling is continuing in good mode with impressive 2 m cores. Loggers depth is 423.32 m.

Weather: Mostly overcast with wind up to 8 m/s from N, snow showers and snow drift. Temperatures -8°C to -13°C.

Renland FL, Anders Svensson