Little Dome C - Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice Drilling Site (75.29917 °S, 122.44516 °E) – Season 2022/23
Situation Report #41; Thursday 12th January 2023
Personnel @LDC: Saverio Panichi (ENEA, Camp Leader), Frank Wilhelms (AWI, Chief Driller), Robert Mulvaney (BAS, Chief Scientist), Romily Harris Stuart (LSCE), Matthias Hüther (AWI), Gunther Lawer (AWI), Johannes Lemburg (AWI), Martin Leonhardt (AWI), Michele Scalet (ENEA), Julien Westhoff (NBI), Andrea de Vito (ENEA)
Personnel @DC: Giuditta Celli (UNIVE, ISP), Markus Grimmer (UNIBE), Florian Krauss (UNIBE)
Weather at LDC 5 pm: cloudy, 2-3 knots, 643 hPa
Meteo at DC 5 pm:T = −28°C, Wind = E 5 knots, Wind Chill T = −38°C
Easy drilling continues; we break through the 700 m depth mark
Drilling was again routine today, with ten runs of the drill producing nearly 32 m of ice cores. While the drilling itself has been easy today, the ice is becoming more fragile, and takes careful handling to avoid breaking of the cores.
Notable too, we passed the 700 m depth today, though without the celebration we had at 500 m.
End of day statistics:
Individual runs of the drill were recorded as: 3.50, 2.72, 3.18, 3.01, 3.34, 3.03, 3.45, 2.97, 2.75, 3.12 m
- Drillers’ depth: 703.72 m; daily total 31.87 m
- Loggers’ depth: 707.40 m; daily total 31.77 m
Rob Mulvaney & Frank Wilhelms - LDC, 16 Jan 2023