Little Dome C - Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice Drilling Site (75.29917 °S, 122.44516 °E) – Season 2022/23
Situation Report #43; Saturday 14th January 2023
The combined personnel from the BE-OIC drilling project, the French science traverse, and the Australian MYIC traverse. (Photo: Mulvaney, Leica SL2-S, 35mm, 1/500, f8, ISO-100). Credit: Mulvaney©PNRA/IPEV
Relaxing on a Saturday night with the neighbours. (Photo: Mulvaney, Leica SL2-S, 16mm, 1/30, f8, ISO-400. Credit: Mulvaney©PNRA/IPEV
Personnel @LDC: Saverio Panichi (ENEA, Camp Leader), Frank Wilhelms (AWI, Chief Driller), Robert Mulvaney (BAS, Chief Scientist), Markus Grimmer (UNIBE), Romilly Harris Stuart (LSCE), Matthias Hüther (AWI), Gunther Lawer (AWI), Johannes Lemburg (AWI), Florian Krauss (UNIBE), Martin Leonhardt (AWI), Michele Scalet (ENEA), Julien Westhoff (NBI), Andrea de Vito (ENEA)
Personnel @DC: Giuditta Celli (UNIVE, ISP)
Weather at LDC 5 pm: sunny, 2-3 knots, 643 hPa
Meteo at DC 5 pm: T = −29°C, Wind = E 5 knots, Wind Chill T = −39°C
Drilling continues with shorter runs; we invite the whole neighbourhood over for pizza
Six runs of the drill gave us a little over 14 m of core today, before we stopped early for the Saturday night meal. The last run of the day finished after 1800, so we left the drill plus the last 3.2 m core parked in the borehole at 30 m deep overnight rather than take the further one hour needed to log the core, collect the ice chips, and clean the drill.
There was more enthusiasm for pizza than continuing with the drilling into the evening – understandably given that we had invited the whole neighbourhood over for pizza. There were 29 of us in total – thirteen from Beyond EPICA, six from the French traverse, and ten from the Australian traverse that had arrived a few days earlier.
As ever, Saverio supplied us with a range of pizzas and snacks, while Philippe from the French team provided a large bowl of linguini. Our Australian colleagues provided a few bottles of nice wine, while we provided the beer – oddly enough from Tasmania.
End of day statistics:
Individual runs of the drill were recorded as: 3.21, 0.10, 2.79, 2.68, 2.14, 3.20 m
- Drillers’ depth: 741.58 m; daily total 14.31 m
- Loggers’ depth: 745.19 m; daily total 14.35 m
Rob Mulvaney & Frank Wilhelms - LDC, 16 Jan 2023