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

Personnel @LDC: Saverio Panichi (ENEA, Camp Leader), Carlo Barbante (ISP-CNR, PI), Olivier Alemany (IGE), Giacomo Bonanno (ENEA), David Brunet (IPEV), Romain Duphil (IGE), Matthias Hüther (AWI), Calogero Monaco (ENEA), Philippe Possenti (IGE), Michele Scalet (ENEA), Jakob Schwander (unibe), Thomas Stocker (unibe), Remo Walther (unibe)

Personnel @DC: Gregory Teste (IGE)

Weather at LDC: morning: windy and cloudy, late afternoon: sunny, low wind

Meteo at DC 6 pm: T = −27°C, Wind = 10 knt, Wind Chill T = −39°C

Sunday started slowly, but work caught up quickly. The unusual weather conditions prevailed in the morning with many clouds and strong winds. Fortunately, in the afternoon the winds calmed down, and by dinner time it was most pleasant to stay outside.

Reaming and cleaning of the BEOIC bore hole continued under the direction of Philippe and Carlo. In the meantime, Olivier et Romain unpacked the heavy casing tubes and brought them into the tent where they were stacked.

BEOIC drilling depth at the end of the day: 128.0 m

The morning at the RADIX site started with heavy lifting. We had to move the more than 0.5 tons of hydraulic tube and winch, mounted on an aluminum sledge, into the drilling tent. With a lot of pulling, pushing and edging, intercepted by shoveling, we finally placed the heavy item on the prepared wooden fundament in the tent. We then started to unpack and install the motor of the winch, place the high-pressure pump, assemble the many components of the fluid recycling system, barrels, pumps, filters to extract the ice chips, etc., etc.

Radix drilling depth: 107.6 m

Thomas Stocker and Carlo Barbante