Situation Report #3, 22. December 2019

Little Dome C - Beyond EPICA Drilling Site (75.29917 degS, 122.44516 degE)

Personnel: Saverio Panichi (ENEA), Michele Scalet (ENEA), Luc Piard (IPEV), Jakob Schwander (unibe), Thomas Stocker (unibe), Remo Walther (unibe)

Weather at 8 am: sunny, no clouds

Today the firn drilling of Radix has started. The specially designed firn drill of 4 cm diameter is connected to a vacum system that transports the drill chips to the surface. Occasional clogging of the drill chips occurred down to about 25 m. This required pulling the drill and cleaning at the surface. Beyond this depth steady progress of about 3 mm/s was made, and a depth of 50 m was reached by the close of the day. We have thus brought to the surface firn of an estimated age of 1000 years. In the morning, Michele prepared a 1 km skiway for Twin Otter visits to Little Dome C. Luc, Michele and Saverio finished the foundation platform for the BELDC drilling tent by filling the grid space of the lowest wood framing with snow resulting in a level surface for further construction.

At 11.30 we welcomed Massimo Frezzotti and 7 colleagues from Dome C on their "Sunday excursion". The purpose of this visit was to collect a spare part for the PB300 which needs repair at the workshop in Dome C. 

LDC, 22.12.2019