Polar Research Vs. Murphy’s Law

Hello everyone.  Apologies on not providing updates to our research blog sooner, but it has been a very busy time here at the UofR Ice core lab.  I’m glad to announce that we are leaving for our 2014 season in Greenland this coming Monday, May 12^th 2014.  But before we get there, let me take you back a bit through the craziness that has occurred here in the past few months in preparation for this season.

I’ve been very busy in the lab testing the performance of our 14C extraction line that we will use to process our field samples that we have started to collect.  That was my main objective this semester after returning from the Antarctic in late January – hard to believe that was only three and a half months ago.  By mid-march I had finished generating a series of test samples that were sent to our colleague Dr. Andrew Smith to be measured on the ANTARES accelerator at ANSTO.  A few weeks later the results were in that our system was exceptionally clean and performing exactly as we had anticipated – I had the green light to go ahead and process the firn air samples we had collected at summit last year.

Taking good notes is important for sound science!

Time was of the essence too, since the 35L electropolished steel cylinders containing our samples from last year needed to be evacuated and shipped to Greenland to contain the samples we are planning on collecting this upcoming season.  The rush was on, and I began working as hard as I could to process and extract our 14C samples.  Working 10-12 hour days, 6 or 7 days a week became the norm – as deadlines with regards to this season were fast approaching.  Likely as a result of long days spent in the lab, I made a critical mistake one Sunday night – I accidentally fractured part of the glass on our sample line!

Luckily this occurred while I was setting up the line rather than during sample collection, so I was very thankful that no sample was lost.  As you can see from the photo the damage to the line was minor, and since I was following proper procedure it was isolated to only a single section of the line.  Taking a deep breath – I sent an email off to our glassblower who could hopefully patch up the line and after a day or two of flushing clean air through I could be back in business.  The first essence of panic came to me when I found out that our glassblower (West Scientific Glass) was on vacation, and would not be returning for about a week.  This was troublesome, but manageable, giving me time to catch up on processing cargo and doing other logistics preparation.  Time was running short to process all of the samples, but at least I had a few days to catch up on sleep before the final push came through.

The flowing week Joe came in and repaired the line in his usual perfect fashion, however; the following day as I attempted to flush the line with clean air and get it in operational condition again, I came to find out that the high-pitched whine coming from our Turbomolecular pump was signaling its own death – as it failed to spin up to the high vacuum needed in the procedure.

I wonder what Agilent would do if we returned it looking like this

Aaaah, only when I had recovered from one problem another presented itself to me!  Spending the better part of a day on the phone with the manufacturer – I found there was another pump on the shelf available in their Delaware location that I was able to rush ship to us.  In case that wasn’t going to arrive in time, I also had our colleagues in Boulder, Colorado at INSTAAR ship out a pump that we could use.  In the meantime, Phil was driving a Penske truck with the majority of our cargo (Save the sample tanks and a few things we needed to ship last-minute to the Scotia Air National Guard base).

The day that I finally get the line flushed and in operational condition, we received a rather important email from the NSF regarding the C-130 aircraft that we fly to Greenland:

Dear Greenland Researchers:

The LC-130’s NSF uses to support operations in Greenland are experiencing a fleet-wide mechanical issue. The flight period planned for April 22-May 2 is postponed until further notice. NSF is exploring options for continuing science operations in Greenland while the aircraft are repaired. The 109th Airlift Wing is exploring options to make some aircraft available for missions to Greenland starting in May.

The bleed air lines, which are responsible for moving air away from the engine to heat the aircraft and for other purposes, may have corrosion that could cause significant issues in flight. Each aircraft needs to be inspected. Replacement parts are in limited supply given the number of C-130 aircraft nationwide that potentially need replacement bleed air lines and replacement seals and other parts for re-sealing the engine following inspection or repair.

We are looking at options for supporting the planned science. Science has already been delayed but no projects have been cancelled so far.

Wow.  This came to us at a time when I’m already working at full capacity to get our prior samples processed.  Kind of familiar to last season at Taylor Glacier, where the government shutdown nearly cancelled our season.  I guess the nature of our work is a constant battle against Murphy’s Law – “If something can go wrong, it will”

Many discussions were had at that point about what would happen to our season.  This came ~3 weeks before our scheduled departure, so our options were as varied from a week delay to cancelling the whole season until next year.  It was a very uncomfortable 6 days until we finally got news that the repairs had been made to the planes and the test flights were successful!  We got the green light to go as scheduled.  Good news for our season – bad news for me in that I had to work like a dog to get the rest of the samples processed before we leave.

This is the most challenging part of extracting samples – one mistake when flamesealing and all that time and effort is wasted!

Well, that was about a week ago and after a series of long days & nights in the lab, I’m proud to say that as of yesterday, I have officially extracted a full suite of 14CH4 & 14CO samples from the firn matrix collected at summit last year.  In fact, as I write this, I am processing the final standard extraction on the system to complete our set of 14C samples that will be shipped to ANSTO to be measured in the coming month.  This will constitute the first major dataset of my PhD!

Bubble wrapped and ready for shipping across the world

As for the season preparation, some science projects, including the IDDO Intermediate Drill Test were delayed about a week and a half.  Hopefully they will still be able to complete their work in their time at summit.  Let’s just hope the weather behaves.  On our end, the sample tanks were cleaned out and shipped off the ANG base on Tuesday with the last of our cargo.  Many thanks to officer Durant at the Rochester airport CBP office for processing the customs registration for us.  Now all that is left is for us to pack up our clothes and make the journey over to Scotia for our flight.  Next you hear from us we should be up above the Arctic Circle!

-Ben

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Tikilluarit Kalaallit Nunaat (Welcome to Greenland)

As I write this blog post, we are headed to our final destination: Summit. The journey has certainly been long and eventful. We started out driving to Albany on an atypically warm Rochester Sunday. Ben’s aunt Sharon and uncle Ed were kind enough to provide food and lodging for the night. As the sun set, Michael, Phil, and Ben went outside to enjoy their last glimpses of darkness for the next 6-7 weeks. The following day at a casual 05:00, we headed over to the air national guard base in Scotia. The base was a lot smaller than I was expecting, but the planes were huge! We were taking a C-130 up to Kangerlussuaq. The inside of the plane was a hollow shell with a bunch of cargo strapped to the back and mesh seating for the passengers. There was very little personal space and comfort, but we all managed the trip just fine, well maybe not Phil. The most surprising aspect of the plane ride was the men’s “urinal”. It was essentially a metal bucket with a lid behind a curtain at the front of the plane where the seating was. Allegedly there was a women’s bathroom at the rear of the plane, but I doubt it could actually be called a bathroom. Otherwise, the ride wasn’t too bad in terms of the steadiness of the plane.

 

A rare C-130 without Skiis

Isaac loved the C130 flight

Our first stop was at Goose Bay in New Foundland. Though it was about 75 degrees fahrenheit when we left Rochester, Goose Bay was at a brisk 30 degrees. We stayed in the air base there for the duration of the plane refueling, but it was nice station. The couches were super comfortable and gave some of us the opportunity to take a cat nap before re-boarding the plane.

Looking out the window of the East Greenland coast

Next was Greenland. We arrived at Kangerlussuaq at about 18:00 and the runway was amazing! It was surrounded by tall hills on all sides with snowy caps. While we waited for the officials to check our passports, I tried to spot the town. Eventually one of the passengers pointed it out to me. Kangerlussuaq consist of about 15-20 very colorful buildings and around 400 residents. We were housed in a red bunker looking building known as KISS (Kangerlussuaq International Science Support). The living quarters were hostel style, which was a new experience for me. My roommate was an older woman named Leah who was actually going to be at the nearby field camp at Summit working on the Intermediate Depth Drill (IDD). It was rather late after we ate our “food”, so I started preparing my bed. But after entering my room, I was shocked at how bright it still was outside. It looked like it should have been about 17:00 as opposed to 23:30. It definitely took me a while to convince my brain that it was actually late at night and fall asleep.

The next day was full of adventure! Michael, Phil, Ben, and I went next door to the Polar Bear Inn, which is pretty much the only restaurant in Kanger. There were some interesting items on the menu, like musk ox green curry, but not many vegetarian options. Most of us decided on pizza with corn and mushrooms. I’ve eaten some bad food throughout the years, but this was on a whole new level. I’ve never heard of corn on a pizza before so I was a bit curious about it, but it’s honestly a terrible idea. They used canned corn and slimiest mushrooms known to man. It was edible, but I definitely did not want to fill up on it. Phil and Ben generally agreed, but Michael loved it. He claimed it was good plastic-y pizza and finished all our leftovers. I have no idea how his stomach hasn’t just given up on him

After lunch I went on one of the coolest adventures of my life. Also traveling up to Summit were a couple of tower workers planning inspect and increase the efficiency of the ones at Summit. Like me, this was their first time out of the country, so we wanted to go exploring. We rented an incredibly pricey old Toyota Hilux and drove out to the edge of the glacier. The views were absolutely amazing. Most of the water was still frozen, but you could tell that after everything melts, Kanger will be full of sparkling blue lakes and ponds. The road that we took was very windy and rocky and made for an adventure on its own. Along the way we saw a herd of musk ox and some reindeer. They were so cute!!

Melisa standing at the edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet

We drove on the road as long as it went. The end was a geologist’s playground. There were huge glacial deposits and I grabbed a few samples for my rock friends back in Rochester. The ice sheet was beautiful. It was so dynamic in shape and colorful with the different melt layers picking up shades of blue. We walked on it for a short while before heading back. It was a nice precursor to the sights I will see once I get off the plane at Summit and I look forward to seeing the area again once it melts on the return trip. On the way home, the gentlemen who accompanied me on the trip let me take the wheel and showed me how to drive stick shift. It was kind of terrifying learning on such a difficult road, but I got the hang of it pretty fast. We have since left KISS, but I loved staying there and had a really fun couple of days. The team had a logistical meeting before we left and I’m looking forward to a successful field season!

-Melisa

Murphy’s Law Still Prevails on the Ice

As I write this blog post, I’m sitting on the comfortable futon of summit station, enjoying our first day off since we’ve gotten here. Its been a long and stressful start to our season, so allow me to catch everyone up to speed on the details of what has happened thus far.

Our team arrived at summit on Wednesday May 14th, happy to be on the ice and in the presence of many familiar faces from last year. We were welcomed into the station by the station manager, Ken, and urged to take a breather, relax, and get used to the altitude. Shortly after arriving, I began to feel the altitude very strongly (Headache, exhaustion, slow breathing, body aches) – not a pleasant beginning to the season as we were all eager to get out to our field site and begin working. I was not the only one in fact, many members of our team weren’t feeling great regarding the altitude or sleeping the first night in tents in the brutal cold (I think it got down close to -40 – quite different than the warm summer temps everyone is experiencing stateside nowadays)

The following day, some members were feeling better and started walking around station to locate cargo and begin getting it transferred out to our field site 10Km NNW of station. Others (myself included) rested on the couches at summit, giving our bodies time to acclimate to the dramatic change in altitude & cold temps. By Friday 5/16, I finally had gotten a good night sleep and was feeling good enough to get to work, though I couldn’t say the same for other members of our team. We took a poll in the morning, and half of us (Vas, Michael Josh & Myself) were feeling good enough to make the move out to our camp, while the others decided to hang back at station, resting and trying to allow their bodies to acclimatize.

The move went smoothly for us, working hard to get our camp established so that we could begin setting up the drill and scientific equipment the following day. By the end of the day, as we all gathered for a dinner that our camp manager, Jamie, had prepared for us – we heard that summit station had an urgent message for us. One member of our team, Isaac, had come down with HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema) and was being medically evacuated to a hospital in Illulisat (a larger city than Kanger along the Greenland coast). This was a shock to us all, overwhelmed with worry, but apparently in good hands as one member of the station was also trained as a nurse and flew with him to ensure his safety. Meanwhile, Phil & Jayred were also not doing so well physically and kept under close watch of the station medic. Melisa, on the other hand had acclimatized and was to be coming out to camp the next day.

Short-staffed but still with enough to do, we plodded forward with setting up the lab and drill with as many hands were available – while Vas took a ride back to summit to discuss options regarding our staffing for the remainder of the season. When Vas returned that night, he asked us if we wanted to hear the good news, the bad news, or the REALLY bad news. The good news was that Isaac had made it to Illulisat and was recovering in the hospital there (As I write this he is back home in colorado and doing better). The bad news was that Phil and Jayred were both to be sent home the following day (the last day of the flight period) as their conditions (Vertigo and difficulty breathing) were not improving. The even worse news was that Melisa was to be sent home as well, although she had acclimatized well, she had also lost a filling on her tooth and with no dentist around the concerns of an infection developing was enough to have her sent back home.

Disappointing news all around – in that only a few days into the the first half of our season , we were reduced to half of our originally planned team size. I guess Murphy’s law still continues afflicting us even up on the icecap. Needless to say, this has put a negative impact on our plans for the season. We’ve all been working very long days, but been receiving help all around for everyone who can. Between our camp and summit station, there is another camp of drillers testing the intermediate drill for the South Pole Ice core to be deployed in Antarctica the next two seasons. They have been immensely helpful by sending us a drill assistant for the past several days to work with Josh so that Michael Vas & I could set up the lab and begin our 14C extractions. They have also helped us out by inviting us over to dinner at their camp – enabling us to focus as much on the science as we can. This is amazing on their end, considering that their season was even cut short by a week and a half as a result of the issues with the C130 planes I mentioned a few posts ago. They have just transitioned to working 2 shifts, so we will have to manage with just the four of us for now.

Luckily, I’m proud to say that we haven’t really fallen behind yet – largely as a result of cooperation on behalf of the weather (let’s hope is stays that way ;P) and everyone around summit being exceptionally helpful. Vas drafted out a plan for the remainder of the season, and provided that we’re able to get up to a full team of 8 + Jamie on the next flight period (Jun 4th), we may still be able to complete our sampling goals. All of our focus now is in acquiring the samples we came here for. Hopefully when things get simpler we will be able to share more stories & photos of our work here. But until then – we’re working hard up here at summit

-Ben

Drill ye Tarriers Drill

So drill, ye tarriers, drill
And drill, ye tarriers, drill
Oh it’s work all day for the sugar in your tay

– 19th century American folk song “Drill ye Tarriers Drill”-

There is one thing that separates men and beasts – men have always dreamed to achieve greatness while beasts just follow their instinct to survive (Disclaimer: “men” here refer to the entire Homo sapiens species, including female Homo sapiens  – I think “men and beasts” just sounds more poetic than “human and beasts”). Anyway, as evidenced by Lord Byron’s and many of his contemporaries’ poems, we’re always striving to climb the highest mountain peak, sail across the most dangerous oceans, and conquer all the harshest places on Earth. I personally would put another bullet point in the bucket list of absurd things that men always strive to do: to drill the deepest hole on earth and to have the biggest drill in their possession. For this particular obsession I blame Sigmund Freud.

Top: Big drills in popular fiction (left to right): Drilpod-GI Joe, Drillman-Megaman, Big Daddy – Bioshock Infinite, Graf Eisen – Magical Girl Nanoha, Gurren Lagann Mecha, King Mogura drill
Bottom: Big drills in real life (left to right): Generic oil rig drill, Jiffy ice drill for ice fishing, giant tunnel drill, sediment core drill from JOIDES resolution research cruise, Blue Ice Drill & Tanner Kuhl

Fortunately, ice core drilling is more than just a Scott or Shackleton style of testosterone filled cold weather endurance bonanza or a Freudian insecurity wish fulfilment (although at first glance it kinda does look like it). To appreciate ice core research one first needs to understand its history. It all begins here, in the year 1954, in the geochemistry journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta with an article titled “The O-18 abundance in freshwater” [1] by a pipe smoking bearded Danish scientist named Willi Dansgaard:

In certain areas on the Greenland Ice Cap is a distinct layer formation caused by melting in the summer season… in the opinion of this author, offers the possibility by measurements of the a_f (i.e. the amount of the heavy oxygen isotope) in these layers of ice to determine climatic changes over a period of time of several hundred years of the past. …  An investigation will be undertaken as soon as the opportunity offers.

basically Dansgaard was studying the variation & global distribution of the rarer O-18 (oxygen atom with 10 neutrons and 8 protons) with respect to the more common O-16 (oxygen atom with 8 neutrons and 8 protons) in freshwaters and he found out that the ratio between O-18 and O-16 correlates well with the temperature in which the precipitation occurs (among many other things). He then hypothesizes that if one were to analyze the O-18 to O-16 ratio in Greenland snow as a function of depth, one will be able to go back in time and figure out Greenland’s past temperature.

Picture of Wili Dansgaard holding an ice core

On the other side of the Atlantic, fueled by a good ol’ Cold War paranoia the US military started a project called “Project Iceworm.” The true purpose of this project, as uncovered by the Danish Foreign Policy Institute’s investigation in 1997 is to set up a network of 2,500 miles long tunnels underneath the Greenland ice sheet and load them with nuclear missiles that can be remotely launched in case of nuclear war with the Soviet [2],[3] – a truly genius and groundbreaking idea that might be worthy of Darwin Award. To ensure the secrecy of it, both the Danish and Greenlandic governments were kept in the dark regarding the true goal of this project. The US need a cover program – hence the highly publicized Camp Century. A video of it can be found here. The Department of Defense told the Danish government that the official purpose of Camp Century was to: “to test various construction techniques under Arctic conditions, explore practical problems with a semi-mobile nuclear reactor, as well as supporting scientific experiments on the icecap.” While some might say that it was a classic half-truth statement, at least they weren’t lying about it, especially regarding the scientific experiment part. The entire project turned out to be a failure anyway, because the US military quickly realized that Greenland ice sheet is very dynamic and their tunnels would be crushed in no time due to ice flow. One great silver lining from this disastrous project is the retrieval of a valuable Camp Century Ice core – “the world’s first ice core ever” that would later be analyzed by Willi Dansgaard to prove his hypothesis.

Our driller Josh Gotez and guest star driller from Bear Camp Elizabeth running the BID-Deep

Fast forward to 2014, ice cores have become one of the best sources for paleoclimate archives and ice core drilling technique has improved significantly (certainly no more smoking pipe next to the ice core!). Modern ice core drilling can be separated into two general categories: “dry drilling” which means drilling ice core without drill fluid and “wet drilling” which requires a drill fluid. For the really deep ice core projects (on the order of kilometers deep), drill fluid is necessary to keep the hole from collapsing due to pressure. For this project at Summit, we used a big diameter dry drill called the “Blue Ice Drill” or BID for short. It was designed by our colleagues at IDDO (Ice Drilling Designs and Operation) – University of Wisconsin. One of the main goals of this season is the testing of BID-Deep on firn ice down to 200m depth. Before the implementation of the “deep-mode”, the BID was only able to drill down to about 20-30m depth. The major difference between the deep-mode and shallow mode is the addition of a winch system that allows the BID to drill deeper but also makes it significantly heavier and less mobile than the shallow mode. On the shallow mode, instead of using a steel winch cable the BID used a fairly straightforward rope system that according to Tanner – one of the main engineers for the drill: “an awkward cross between climbing wall and a sailboat.” Anyway, we are proud to announce that in the last week or so, we managed to drill down to 187m with the BID-Deep and obtain many subsamples for both CO isotopes and N₂O isotopes. However, at depth more than 140m we unfortunately encountered many fracturing in the ice cores and had to reduce our subsampling intervals. Anyway all is not lost, because we’ll be back next season to do the proper drilling with the BID-Deep and hopefully our colleagues at Madison, Wisconsin can figure out a solution to reduce the fracturing on the deep cores.

-Michael

References:

[1] Dansgaard, Willi. “The O18-abundance in fresh water.”Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 6.5 (1954): 241-260.

[2] Weiss, Erik D. (Fall 2001). “Cold War Under the Ice: The Army’s Bid for a Long-Range Nuclear Role, 1959-1963”. Journal of Cold War Studies 3 (3): 31–58. doi:10.1162/152039701750419501

[3] Petersen, Nikolaj (March 2008). “The Iceman That Never Came: ‘Project Iceworm’, the search for a NATO deterrent, and Denmark, 1960–1962”. Scandinavian Journal of History 33.

Good progress at C-14 Camp

We’ve had considerably better luck the past couple of weeks and have made excellent progress despite being at only ½ of the team. We’ve been quite efficient and have worked rather long hours. As a result, the deep drill test with the Blue Ice Drill (BID) has been overall successfully completed. The drill performed flawlessly until about 130 m. Below 130 m, the first fractures in the cores began to appear, and below 150 m the ice core became mostly unusable. With Josh as well as Tanner and Jay from the IDDO camp putting their heads together, they concluded that different types of cutters should be able to solve the problem with core quality the next time the BID is in the field.

We have also made very good progress with collecting the large-volume samples for 14C studies. We now have a complete surface (0.25 – 1.00 m depth) sample collected (this took 7 full days of work), and we have performed more than half of the extractions for our first procedural blank sample. Both Ben and Michael are getting up to speed with all aspects of the large ice melter system, in preparation for leading their own shifts on this system.

After several days of uncertainty, last-minute changes, and many hours spent trying to talk to many people over Irridium phones, we also finally have a good plan in place to restore the team to the full 8 people for the 2nd half of the season. Sadly, one of our original team members (Mike Jayred) is not able to return as the respiratory symptoms that have forced his evacuation from Summit have not completely gone away. At the last minute, one of the ice drillers (Grant) at the Intermediate Drill test camp changed his mind and decided that he would like to stay at Summit beyond the end of his project and help us out. This is fantastic, as it allows us to have two IDDO drillers leading the BID drill shifts. Grant will be joining us in a few days. Also on their way are Melisa, Phil, Mike and Andy – they are flying to Kangerlussuaq as I write this.

We can also tell that June is here – temps rose as high as -15˚C today! With very little wind, our stove-heated weatherport has been way too warm (thermometer reading into the 90s with doors closed the other day!).

Best wishes,
Vas

Sundogs and sunbows

 

BID Firn core art

 

Ice melter tucked in for the cold night

 

 

Michael cutting surface firn blocks for 14C samples

Ice melter full of near-surface firn

Fractured BID ice core from below 150 m depth

Ben separating the BID core barrels.

 

A Brief Summit Survival Guide

After traveling twice to Summit, I thought it might be a good idea to put together a list of tips I’ve picked up along the way. Here it goes!

Tip 1: Check your packing list several times before travel. You may have done the trip several times before and just trust that you have everything you need. FALSE! Always triple check and make sure you have everything you need.

Tip 2: For your own sake, don’t party the night before. Take the time to relax and spend some quality time with your friends and family. It’s tough not talking to them everyday.

Tip 3: Do what works for you. I had a very difficult time sleeping in the tent due to the cold. I currently sleep on the floor of my tent with 2 ridge rest pads and a thermarest air pad below me, a thin sleeping bag wrapped around my mummy bag, a bag liner outside a small fleece sleeping bag inside the mummy bag, and then my parka on top of all of that. It’s quite the fortress and gets a few chuckles, but that’s what works for me.

Tip 4: Just because you’re in the field does not mean that you have to be gross. There are plenty of resources to help you stay clean and hygienic. Use them! If you feel sick and gross, you will be miserable.

Tip 5: Listen to your body. If you start feeling sick or very tired, don’t ignore it. Take a breath and slow down. There are buffer days built into every schedule, so don’t feel like you’re letting anyone down by taking it easy. Your health and safety is always the number one concern.

Tip 6: Always have a camera ready. Greenland is a truly amazing place and has absolutely beautiful landscapes. Documenting your adventure will help you relive the experience.

Now some tips from the Summit crew!

Tips from Ward: Blacking out your windows or covering your eyes at night can really help you sleep. Stick to a schedule and your days will go by a lot smoother. Eat lots of candy to keep energized. A pillow is a critical part of survival gear.

Louisa: Always keep a pair of socks in bottom of your sleeping bag. In the morning they’ll be nice and warm.

Andy: Empty your pee bottle everyday! You’ll be really unhappy in the middle of the night if you don’t. All the dumb things that happen are for your enjoyment, otherwise you won’t make it.

Fake Ken: Watch what you eat. Wash your hands regardless of how tired you are before you eat. Drink lots of water. Eat greens if they’re available. You don’t know when you’ll have the opportunity to again. Bring wet wipes to keep tidy in between showers. Having at least 2 pee bottles is a good idea.

Jaime: Sleep with your clothes for the next day so they’re already in your bag when you need to change. Keep electronics next to your body so they don’t get cold and die. Wear layers not just heavy clothes in case you start getting warm. Sweating in the cold just feels plain gross.

From all crew: A positive attitude will take you a long way.

-Melisa

Obligatory Update

Things are running rather smoothly at camp now that we have a full team of 8 to work on the drilling and science operations. We have made our full transition to shifts as of last Saturday, with work starting ~5am for the morning crew and ~530pm for the evening crew. Shift work up here is a great way to boost productivity with our limited time since we get 24 hours of daylight. There are advantages about working night shift – namely that falling asleep is easy as it is quite warm in our Arctic oven tents during the day – a bit of a trade off for having slightly colder working hours. Also, some people seem to mind having dinner for breakfast, but I LOVE it, breakfast is supposed to be a big important meal anyway – why not eat curries and pasta to get energy for the day?

Vas left our camp to head back to the states on Wednesday morning – passing over responsibilities of field leader to myself.  Its been fun being the big cheese up here, but it is certainly more work in keeping things organized and overseeing all of our operations.  At least I have Jamie, our camp manager helping out on the day to day camp operations so that I can focus on leading the science.

A few days ago, we completed collection of our sample from the 10m depth level. We were able to get by with 6 melter extractions rather than the original 7 because the density was slightly higher than anticipated – allowing us to get more mass into the melter with each extraction. The trend may hold for the 20m sample as well – but we will not know until we measure the water level at the end of the day. The current plan is to collect a series of procedural blank samples (which aim to characterize the extraneous 14C added as a result of sample processing) over the next few days while the drillers extend our maze of boreholes down to ~19m in preparation for collecting samples at 20m.

Today was a much needed rest day to come into summit for showers, laundry, internet and companionship. With the flight that took Vas back to the states, station is left relatively vacant with only 9 people left on station most of the time, except for when the twin otter crew that is doing seismic studies over the ice sheet stops in for a night. Today was also exceptionally warm up here – the thermometer is reading 11F, as I write this. The only challenge left for me today is to stay awake long enough so that I can stay on my night shift of sleeping from ~7am to 3pm.

Cheers,
Ben

We are “pro-fessionals”, look it up in the book

The deity of success is a woman, and she insists on being won, not courted. You’ve got to seize her and bear her off, instead of standing under her window with a mandolin.”

– Rex Beach

Dear loyal reader,

‘Tis my honor to bring you good news from the top of Greenland’s ice sheet. Despite the hardships that had hitherto plagued our expedition, we have successfully completed all of our initial scientific objectives and plus some more. Let us briefly sum up the work accomplished between May 16^th to June 25^th: (1) a successful testing of the Blue Ice Drill Deep mode up to 187m deep – from this test we managed to obtain four boxes worth of ice specimen for carbon monoxide isotope and position dependent nitrous oxide isotope measurements, (2) a successful collection of four air extractions from firn ice with the big ice melter, (3) successful collection of four procedural blanks from the big ice melter – two wet water blanks, one dry inject – recirculate blank and one hot dry blank. During this period we drilled a total of 687.77 fathoms (1 meter = 0.547 fathom) worth of ice cores from 58 holes.

We managed to achieve all this despite losing half of our team members during the first half of the expedition, three abandoned sample/blank extractions, a couple of abandoned boreholes due to dropping several items (gloves, allen wrenches, etc) into them, and multitudes of problems with the Blue Ice Drill; for example by the end of the season, the Blue Ice Drill has gone through almost all of its spare parts – drill barrels, anti-torques, electrical connections, etc. Through the difficulties, each men and women in our expedition worked gallantly without any complain. Deservedly, most of us took it easy in the last couple of days during camp packup. In our spare time, some of us made a very artistic sculpture out of ice cores and a couple days ago we even had a very gay (in ye Olde English kind of way, obviously) evening playing a game of soccer football in the snow.

Overall, I would say that the expedition went splendidly. For a closing note of this post I have a quote from Sir Ernest Shackleton – a man of indomitable will and boundless courage lest any future polar fieldwork encountered similar hardship to us: “Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all.”

Yours truly

Michael N. Dyonisius

Grad student

Our gallant drillers – Josh and Grant playing football in the snow

BID core sculpture
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
– Percy Bysshe Shelley