Little Dome C - Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice Drilling Site (75.29917 °S, 122.44516 °E) – Season 2023/24
Situation Report #33, 29 December 2023
Stable water isotopes from EPICA and Beyond EPICA.
Arrival of the Korean travers at Little Dome C. Photo: J. Westhoff. Credit: Westhoff©PNRA/IPEV
Bag 1280 – processing has now caught up with drilling. Photo: R. Dallmayr. Credit: Dallmayr©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 1 pm: sunny and windy, T = -21.3°C, Wind = 1.7 m/s
Since last night, drilling has resumed its cruising speed, and we are once again regularly drilling four-meters cores. We've kept the same stall, i.e. 4-meter AWiI drill and Danish motor section. We've solved our antitorque problem, and drilling is now more stable, and we're lighter on the drill head.
We're also very happy today because the processors have caught up with the drillers. Now, we can now move forward together. We processed 43 ice cores today, reaching a depth of depth of 1280m.
The first flight of ice core boxes (at -20°C) to MZS will take place tomorrow. For this purpose, Iben has left for Concordia to supervise loading and to decide which boxes to move. Two random ice core boxes were moved yesterday from Concordia to MZS as a test.
Today we also had a visit from the Korean traverse.
What we did today at LDC:
- drilled in shift;
- processed 43 ice cores and caught up with drilling;
- drilled with the new IGE/F2G shallow drill.
End of day statistics at 19h30:
- Driller’s depth: 1309.4 m;
- we made 8 runs between 19h30 yesterday and 19h30. The length of these core was: 3.07, 3.27, 4.14, 4.26, 4.42, 4.31, 4.4 and 3.74 (driller length), for a total of 31.61;
- Logger’s depth: 1310.72 m
- Current processing depth: 1280 m; daily total: 43 m; season total: 954 m.
Olivier Alemany, Matthias Hüther, Julien Westhoff and Saverio Panichi. LDC, 29.12.2023