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

Situation Report #25, 26. December 2021

Personnel @LDC: Saverio Panichi (ENEA, Camp Leader), Carlo Barbante (ISP-CNR, PI), Olivier Alemany (IGE), 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: sunny, mild, almost no wind

Meteo at DC 6 pm: T = −27°C, Wind = 5 knt, Wind Chill T = −35°C

Today logging of the BEOIC bore hole was carried out by Olivier and Matthias. This is an important step in characterizing the initial conditions of deep drilling. It showed that inclination is less than 1° throughout the 130 m hole. This is an excellent result owing to very experienced drilling, reaming and casing in the weeks before. Our applause goes to the entire team. Work on the drilling tower started today and the wooden frame for the mast was constructed and positioned by Romain.

Michele and Calogero finished the roofing work for the underground containers which will holed the ice cores. They then covered the structure with the snowblower attached to the Pistenbully. This ensures constant low temperature in the containers.

At RADIX we have continued drilling, and after a good two hours we have reached a depth of 250 m. Occasional ice particles have entered the drill which required cleaning after a break. At this depth bringing up the drill, cleaning, and lowering again can well take up one hour or more.

Radix drilling depth: 250.0 m

Thomas Stocker and Carlo Barbante