High speed drilling

High speed drillers Jan and Trevor in a good mood Wednesday morning (that is Tuesday evening) preparing for 14 runs and impressive 27 m of ice core drilling.

Drilling is speeding up with 27 m core drilled today (5% of the total core length!). Loggers depth is: 448.43 m.

It is a pleasure to see one perfect core after the other being pulled up of the hole.

With the new saw installed yesterday the core cuts are regular so overall the packed Renland core is of very high quality.

Because we want to obtain continuous analysis of the core later this year, it is important that the core quality is good. If there are breaks in the core it will be contaminated by drill liquid and many measurements cannot be performed.

At the current depth we are probably 3,500-4,000 years back in time. So hopefully there is still more than 120,000 years waiting for us in the remaining 150 m of ice core.

Besides the high speed drilling camp life is getting into a regular mode with core logging and processing, dining, and camp maintenance.

Weather: Started out with overcast and winds up to 4 m/s from N but cleared up and became blue sky and low winds. A beautiful summer day. Temperatures -7°C to -14°C.

Jan and Andrea are happily helping Anders to dig himself into a hole that will later be covered by the green tent in the background.

Renland FL, Anders Svensson