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

Situation Report #32; Tuesday 03 January 2023

Personnel @LDC: Saverio Panichi (ENEA, Camp Leader), Frank Wilhelms (AWI, Chief Driller), Robert Mulvaney (BAS, Chief Scientist), Giuditta Celli (UNIVE, ISP), Markus Grimmer (UNIBE), Romily Harris Stuart (LSCE), Matthias Hüther (AWI), Gunther Lawer (AWI), Johannes Lemburg (AWI), Martin Leonhardt (AWI), Florian Krauss (UNIBE), Michele Scalet (ENEA), Julien Westhoff (NBI), Andrea de Vito (ENEA)

Personnel @DC: --

Weather at LDC 5 pm: sunny, 3-5 knots, 642 hPa

Meteo at DC 5 pm: T = −33°C, Wind = W, 5 knots, Wind Chill T = −43°C


We say goodbye to Giuditta, and hello to Florian and Markus

Another good day, with ten runs totaling 28 m of ice cores.

Today we said goodbye to Giuditta who is returning to Concordia for a while. Replacing her will be Florian and Markus who came over from Concordia to join the drilling team and will for the time being replace Giuditta on the late shift. Florian and Markus cannot work on the processing at Concordia at present due to a problem with the ice core lab there. The shifts are now Martin, Romilly and Robert on the early shift, and Gunther, Julien, Markus, and Florian on the late shift.

End of day statistics:

Individual runs of the drill were recorded as: 2.74, 3.27, 0.25, 2.68, 2.85, 3.14, 3.43, 3.43, 3.08, 3.08 m

  • Drillers’ depth: 466.70 m; daily total 28.26 m (discrepancy noted, and appears to be an error on the cable spooled depth; total core lengths recorded add to 27.95 m, similar to loggers’ total)
  • Loggers’ depth: 471.03 m; daily total 27.87 m


Rob Mulvaney & Frank Wilhelms - LDC, 05 Jan 2023