Little Dome C - Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice Drilling Site (75.29917 °S, 122.44516 °E) – Season 2023/24

Personnel @LDC: Saverio Panichi (ENEA, Camp Leader), Olivier Alemany (CNRS), Philippe Possenti (CNRS), Matthias Hüther (AWI), Remi Dallmayr (AWI), Gunther Lawer (AWI), Johannes Lemburg (AWI), Andrea Ceinini (ENEA), Federico Scoto (CNR), Tamara Gerber (UCPH), Iben Koldtoft (UCPH), Julien Westhoff (UCPH), James Veale (BAS), Michaela Mühl (UNIB), Fortunat Joos (UNIB), and Inès Gay (IPEV)

Today we focused on three areas. We have continued to process the core drilled last year, we have tried to solve the problems on the drill, and we have set up a ventilation system to cool the scientific trench. Indeed, temperature measurements taken in the trench show a steady rise in temperature (probably due to opening and closing doors, exposure of the entrance to the sun...) reaching -27°C yesterday, which is not ideal for core processing. To bring the temperature down a few degrees, we're going to pump air through pipes under the snow to cool it down, before blowing it into the scientific trench.

Concerning the drill: We finally solved the winch and mast tilting problem. However, we still have some instability in the motor section. Despite our daily trials and runs, we haven't managed to resolve this instability. We therefore decided to switch to the backup solution and use the Danish drill.