Little Dome C - Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice Drilling Site (75.29917 °S, 122.44516 °E) – Season 2023/24
Situation Report #27, 23 December 2023
The Hydraulic station along the drilling tent. Photo: O. Alemany. Credit: Alemany©PNRA/IPEV
Christmas vibes in the driller cabin. Photo J. Westhoff. Credit: Westhoff©PNRA/IPEV
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)
Weather at LDC 5 pm: sunny and nice, T = -21°C, Wind = 1.5 m/s
Like yesterday, drilling was fairly stable today. Still using the same set-up, we made 8 runs over four meters long. We are still successfully processing ice cores from below 950m, which is below the brittle zone. Cutting now works very well and we are up to speed again.
We decided to have a “normal” working Saturday, in order to enjoy a full Christmas day off.
What we did today at LDC:
- we continued to drill in shifts;
- we continued processing ice drilled this year and processed 74m in shifts;
- we continued drilling with the IGE’s dry shallow drill.
End of day statistics at 19h30:
- Driller’s depth: 1190.03 m;
- in between 19h30 yesterday and today 19h30 we made 8 drilling runs (drillers delta depth: 4.3, 4.13, 4.45, 4.41, 4.29, 4.5, 4.5, and 4.51) for a total length of 35.09 meters (drillers delta depth);
- Logger’s depth: 1191.58 m
- Current processing depth: 1074 m; daily total: 74 m; season total: 748 m.
Olivier Alemany, Matthias Hüther, Julien Westhoff and Saverio Panichi. LDC, 23.12.2023