Little Dome C - Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice Drilling Site (75.29917 °S, 122.44516 °E) – Season 2022/23

Situation Report #10, 12 December 2022

Personnel @LDC: Romain Duphil (IGE), Romilly Harris-Stuart (LSCE), Gunther Lawer (AWI), Matthias Hüther (AWI), Julien Westhof (UCPH), Martin Leonhardt (AWI), Frank Wilhelms (AWI), Giuditta Celli (UNIVE, ISP), Johannes Lemburg (AWI), Rob Mulvaney (BAS), Saverio Panichi (ENEA), Michele Scalet (ENEA), Andrea Devito (ENEA)

Personnel @DC: Markus Grimmer (UNIBE), Florian Krauß (UNIBE)

Weather at LDC 5 pm: sunny

Meteo at DC 5 pm: T = −°C, Wind = - knt, Wind Chill T = − °C


LDC is entering in a routine drilling mode, although with several problem to be solved. Three runs were unfortunately lost because of anti-torque problems. We are working on it.

What we did today:

- we are working on getting past the transition of the 144 mm hole to the 129.7 mm hole: we undertook 7 runs, where 3 were lost due to sticking or slipping anti-torque

- we overworked, assembled and mounted the 3 m drill

- we repaired the pig

  • Logger depth: 137.97 m
  • DeltaD: 6.32 m
  • Drillers depth: 132.20 m
  • DeltaD: 6.20 m


Frank Wilhelms & Rob Mulvaney - LDC, 12.12.2022