On to the next...

Being the wonderful son Evan is, today he put the call into his mom and dad letting them know all is well, they made it to ACT10-A, and the drill is already up and running!!! They're on a roll - go ACT10 team!  Its amazing what a working drill and not being stuck in Kangor can do for the pursuit of science.

Update!

The team is back together!  It took nearly 4 days, one day driving until after 1am, for Evan, Clement, and Jason to meet-up with Rick and Terry at ACT10-B. Evan indicated it was quite the adventure! They were happy to not only find Rick and Terry upon arrival, but also a successfully drilled 50m core.  Evan said the weather has cooperated, the drill has cooperated, and they hope to move-on to ACT10-A tomorrow.  Evan sounded great and said that everyone on the team is plenty warm, well fed, and in good spirits. 

Operation Phoenix is off!

The stars are aligning!!!! With all of the delays we have had much time to prepare but now with Terry's finger on the road to healed and the weather looking flyable in the Southeast we were able to get Rick and Terry into the field once again to begin the drilling as part of Operation Phoenix. They landed several hours ago, unloaded a second snowmobile. The tent survived 50-60 kt winds over the past few days, all of the equipment is at the site and is well buried but recoverable. Now is the time to begin Phase II of our research, to traverse via snowmobile 300 mi towards the SE coast and back. The Hercs arrived yesterday and have had an aggressive day of flying today, dropping off four of the five needed flights before we can be brought in. Jason, Clement and I are now scheduled to leave tomorrow at noon! The traverse will go to the same places as previously planned only now, we must stop and drill each core along the way and haul the 1700lb drill along with us. We can operate in much worse conditions than the otters can fly but we will still need good weather to get this all done! As of 2 pm this afternoon one major problem remained. Volcanic ash was forecasted to cover Greenland tonight; many airports have already been closed. But a new forecast at 5pm predicts the ash moving back towards Iceland!


Below is our radar setup. The antenna is the red box in the back of the sled and will transmit at 400Mhz straight down into the snow, revealing internal layering to a depth of 50m. The controller in is the box and will be insulated, heated and powered with the solar panels.


We hope to install a met station at Saddle, the highest point along our traverse and an ideal location to study compaction. Since compaction is highly dependent on temperature, we are installing a met station that will measure a temperature profile in the snow at 16 levels to a depth of 15 m with an accuracy of <0.01 degrees C. Below is a photo of the housing that will hold the datalogger and multiplexer. The system is solar powered and will (hopefully) survive the winter to be collected next year.


Rick and Terry taking off this afternoon.

All of the snowmobiles are brand new, and maintained specifically for our traverse. We have all had lessons on Snowmobile maintenance and fit custom GPS navigation and GPS survey equipment. One snowmobile will regularly transmit its location via satellite back to Byrd Polar Research Center. We will try to get this information to you.

What we are doing is called "Herc camping." Its kind of like car camping. Except our car burns 50,000 lbs of fuel an hour and can fly. With all of the science equipment, survival gear, etc., we aren't exactly going light. Our total payload for the flight: 6550 lbs. Below, all of our stuff is on its way to the Herc this afternoon.

Rick and Terry have landed and report mild winds, the cook tent survived the storm unscathed, and the drill is not as horribly buried as expected. Go DRILLING TEAM! Clement, Jason and I will load the returning otter then prepare for our traverse, maybe we'll get lucky and leave sooner than expected! The weather here is beautiful and beginning to feel like spring. Things look to be turning our w

...

Things have changed. Terry has severely cut his finger unloading the snowmobile from the otter. The otter is returning with Rick and Terry. We will go to the hospital with him. Will update as information comes in.

...

Terry's finger has been glued and will be back to good in 5 days however, he was ok'd to go into the field when he feels appropriate. We will remain in Kanger tomorrow. But a storm is moving in for the weekend.


Commercial planes bound for Copenhagen are stuck. The KISS facility will now house ~30 tourists until the ash subsides.

Operation Phoenix is a GO!

We have finally had some good luck today. We have a new plan to attain our primary science goals and with tremendous support from NSF and CPS, the plan was able to takeoff this morning despite ongoing problems. Yesterday was long and busy preparing.

Neither shipment of missing pieces for the drill made it to Kanger due to volcanic ash, but over the past two days Terry has worked hard to machine the pieces here in Kanger. We are extremely confident the machined pieces will work. Ash has been a serious problem and has delayed the Herc training missions, thus delaying the day that we can begin the traverse. This pushes us closer to typical melt onset dates (around May 4th) which, will render the radar useless. Timing is extremely tight for us to pull this off. Following meetings late last night we have re-tweaked Operation Pheonix. NSF has provided additional funding to twin otter flights to return Terry and Rick to the field this morning. And with luck our new plan could actually obtain a core below 2000 meters, which is the ultimate goal and was all but forgotten after our past misfortunes.

We are now shipping two snowmobiles via twin otter to ACT10-B. Rick and Terry will begin drilling ASAP hopefully finishing by the time we arrive on traverse. Then, with 5 snowmobiles we will have the capacity to pull the 1700 lbs drill along with all other gear to the lowest elevation site.

This plan is not is still subject to weather and ash. Rick and Terry will still have to face forecasted 40 kt winds this weekend. The Herc also must get to Greenland and the Raven skiway must get put in quickly for the traverse to get started soon enough to beat the melt. If we are late and melt begins, we will try to re-schedule our operations to work during the night and sleep during the day.

These weeks have been difficult but we are grateful of all of the support from NSF, CPS, Air Greenland and Ken Borek Air. All of our problems have been out of our control and we have been able to roll with the punches. Good luck to Rick and Terry!

Operation Phoenix Unlikely

Operation Phoenix was a great idea, but finally after 20,000 flights have been canceled throughout Europe, now ours are too. The flight from NY carrying the critical dill pieces has been delayed at least one day, possibly longer. Without the pieces Operation Phoenix cannot begin. The ash plume is also moving towards Greenland, potentially shutting down the airport and removing any chance of accessing the ice sheet. Weather alone has restricted our flights: 2 of 10 days have been viable flight days. We utilized both but brought back no results due to a unmaintained drill. Luck, unfortunately, seems to be in short supply.

Project Phoenix

Tonight was huge. We have a new plan, now dubbed "Operation Phoenix." Like the mythical bird we will rise triumphantly from the ashes of Plan A that burnt to the ground over the past two weeks. Two vangaurds (probably Terry and Rick) will bravely return to the ill-fated ACT10-B, reassemble the drill with the new parts carried by Hercules the previous day from NY and drill the 50 m core. They will fly to the site via a new twin otter flight funded but NSF now feeling sympathy for our current position. On the otter flight, we will load a snowmobile for their eventual return via snowmobile. Once the core is finished the drill team will be marooned in the vast expanse of the icesheet. But not to worry! The Calvary (probably me, Clement and Jason) will arrive 5 days later on mogas sipping stallions. We will then move the drill to the lower site in the once foboden DATA VOID. Then once drilled, two snowmobiles will make haste for Raven to meet Hercules by May 6th. The same 300 km journey will be completed more slowly by the radar team as they survey on return. If you have more questions concerning our plan, see the other blog at: http://bprc.osu.edu/wiki/19_April%2C_2010. Also see us on the NSF twitter site: http://twitter.com/NSF_OPP

Première expérience sur la calotte groenlandaise

Je me suis dis que peut être ca serait cool si j’alimentais ce blog en français !

Après une première semaine, plutôt frustrante, passée à KISS (Kangerlussuaq International Sciences Support) à attendre la fenêtre météo idéale, notre pilote se décide un beau matin à nous déposer sur notre site d’étude au vu des conditions météo clémente sur la calotte ce jour là.

L’aventure débute donc enfin et je commence à être bien excité quand on arrive sur le tarmac avec le pick-up chargé avec tout notre matos pour cette expé ! L’idée est de faire 2 Aller- Retour avec un petit avion appelé Twin Otter depuis l’aéroport jusqu'à notre site d’étude sur la calotte, le premier avec le PAX et le matos de survie et le second avec l’équipement pour procéder au forage.

C’est parti après un décollage impeccable, il faut dire qu’on avait Jonas avec nous, le meilleur pilote du Groenland, la calotte se dévoile enfin, on apprécie sa blancheur et son immensité ! 2 heures après, l’avion prépare les skis pour l’atterrissage, Jonas surfe habilement et facilement autour des sastrugi (bosses de neige formées par le vent) et stop l’avion au cœur du Groenland !! On descend tout content avec un petit vent frais, on décharge notre matos et on assiste de près au décollage du Twin Otter, quelques planches et le matos léger s’envolent avec le vent crée par les hélices, une planche vient se casser sur le solide dos de mon chef ! Impressionnant…

Apres il faut construire le camp, on a une grande tente pour la cuisine et 3 tentes de montagne classiques pour dormir. Puis la foreuse arrive et on commence à l’installer, la pièce la plus lourde pèse 200kg et ce n’est pas évident à déplacer !

Vers 18h, la mauvaise nouvelle du jour tombe, notre spécialiste du forage nous annonce qu’il manque une pièce cruciale nous empêchant d’effectuer le forage. On est tous hyper déçu, 3 mois d’intense préparation pour rien…Mais pendant la soirée on trouve un substitut qui permettrait de faire fonctionner cette foreuse malgré tout ! On fini la soirée en dégustant un bon petit whisky tout en appréciant le coucher de soleil seuls au monde au milieu de la calotte ! Instant magique !!!

Durant la nuit le vent se lève, ca souffle dur, 35 nœuds (je crois que ca fait dans les 50-60km/h), difficile de dormir car le vent s’engouffre dans la tente, et comme il fait dans les -25°C, notre respiration condense et crée une fine couche de neige à l’intérieur de la tente qui nous tombe dessus pendant la nuit à cause des vibrations dues au vent !

Le lendemain matin, toujours autant de vent, ca commence à devenir relou d’autant plus qu’il va falloir aller bosser ! On effectue plusieurs tentatives de forages durant la journée et on arrive à 7m de carottage quand la foreuse renonce à aller plus loin, notre petit bricolage de la veille aura pas tenu…Les conditions météo deviennent vraiment dégeu, impossible de forer dans ces conditions, la neige s’infiltre partout ! On contacte alors notre base par téléphone iridium qui nous explique que demain c’est notre dernier jour de « beau temps » et qu’une tempête approche ! Il faut donc dégager la au plus vite ! Vu qu’on est dans l’incapacité de forer on n’a plus rien à faire ici !!

On passe une seconde nuit dans la tente, j’étais tellement crevé que le vent ne m’a pas empêché de dormir comme un bébé ! Le lendemain pas d’améliorations, toujours ce vent avec la même intensité ! On déneige la foreuse et on la prépare pour être récupérer par le Twin Otter, on se prépare et vers midi je découvre l’avion qui effectue un atterrissage plutôt limite sur notre site, les conditions sont pas terribles, on charge vite fait, et quand la porte de l’avion se ferme derrière nous je me dis « Yes !! on rentre à la maison sain et sauf !!! »

A Kangerlussuaq, le pilote prend la décision de ne pas récupérer la foreuse, les conditions météo n’étant pas suffisamment bonnes pour un second atterrissage.

Et voila, maintenant on se prépare pour la seconde étape du plan, la traversée où on va tenter d’effectuer un aller-retour de 700km en motoneige sur la calotte, le foreur nous accompagne et on va sans doute récupérer quelques carottes de glace sur le chemin, en espérant que la foreuse va marcher avec les nouvelles pièces qu’on reçoit normalement demain !

J’ai mis seulement 1 photo de ce premier « but »! Ca prend trop de temps à télécharger!!

La bise depuis Kanger les loulous ! Portez vous bien !

Clem

Defeat

Thursday began like any other, 5:45 wake up, to the airport cantina for breakfast at 6:15, return to KISS for weather briefing and decision on whether to fly or not. But Thursday, Jonas, our pilot said "yes" with a hitch. The volcano erupting in iceland had shut down every airport in scandinavia. Greenland was unaffected...at least for now. The decision was made, we'd take an extra 4 days of food on top of our 7 days of back-up food and Jason would watch closely to see if the weather would pull air from
Iceland and if so a quick pull out would be necessary. After take-off the icefield appears after 5 minutes, then for two hours, nothing but blank white fills one's view. We made it over the divide and were headed down to the southeast when low-lying clouds appeared. To land we needed perfect clear conditions for the pilot to spot and avoid sustrugi. We made it to our destination, the co-pilot looks back and shrugs his shoulders...what to do but turn around and head home? We re-define new coordinates and head further east, hoping for clear weather. 10 minutes later Clement exclaims, "Oh, I see snow!" Indeed. The pilot drew back on the throttle, and spun around. 50..30...10...it was a quick and bumpy landing, we came to a stop.
The co-pilot walked around to open our door, "Welcome to the icesheet." The weather was pretty nice, slight wind, no blowing snow. We unloaded quickly, Jonas wasted no time and soon we were alone. Setting up camp was done efficiently in the good weather.

The Eclipse Drill, weighing 1700 lbs arrived on a second flight four hours later.

After it arrived, we quickly began the setup process, assembling the drill and processing station. A few hours into the setup we hit a catastrophic problem. The drill, provided by an independent company, came missing two critical pieces each about the size of a quarter. Without these pieces the drill is inoperable and thus our primary research goals of obtaining accumulation observations in the southeast would not be attainable. The missing piece was a hinge for an anti-torsion bar. In the photo you can see one parabolic bar hanging below the upper barrel, on the other side, the other bar could not be attached. These bars stick out into the sidewalls of the borehole and prevent the upper-barrel from spinning and force the cutters to rotate into the ice. In the photo you can see we shielded the drill site from the wind with guyed bamboo and tarps. The white boxes are the core boxes.


After an somber dinner, Rick phoned in the news to base (below) and then we received more bad news. The "good weather window" was to end with a large storm in 2 days. We had until then to jury rig a replacement part in the field and drill 150+ feet of core.


That night, the good weather began to degrade. Temps dropped to only about -20F but the winds picked up to a steady 30-40 mph by nightfall. Wind chills around -45. We were well prepared and slept warm, though one thing I did not expect was the constant snowfall inside the tent from vapor deposition on the tent walls. The next morning the winds never settled down. We faced a full day of working in 35+ mph winds.


After several hours of work we built a longer anti-torsion bar by joining two together and then wedged the ends into place under steal pins and secured with steel wire. The fix looked ok but was certainly not up to the precision we would like. In continued howling winds we began to drill, but ran into many problems. The biggest: the jury rigged torsion bar prevented the drill from descending into the hole properly. Cores came out broken or sometimes not at all. We also had problems separating the core at the bottom in the soft snow.

All of these troubles were exacerbated by the weather. I'd frozen pair of goggles and two pair of glacier glasses. My fur ruff was frozen solid. You couldn't set anything on the ground, it would either get blown away or get buried from spin drift in minutes. The spindrift packs in amazingly tight making rock hard snow that permeates everything. Snow filled control panels for the drill and soaked all of the core cards. Clement had no tent to write notes in. He wrote in his notebook barehanded, huddled under his fur ruff. By the end of the day we had collected a piddling 6.5 meters of our 50 m goal. At 7 pm, after being out since 8 am, we staggered into our cook tent, exhausted. All of us just sat in silence for minutes. It was miserable out there. The news from the base was that strong winds were now expected AHEAD of the storm and it would be tight to get us out in time. Our pilot would aim to pick us up as early as possible the next morning. For those of you that worry, we are fully prepared to weather these storms. Working outside in them is a different story.

That night was windier and colder, but I had refined my sleeping methods. I slept very well, others had mixed nights, Terry finally fell asleep at 4 am. The next morning the drifts outside our tent had grown to the point of being problematic. Behind Rick's tent a drift 4 feet high and 200 feet long had form a boundary between Clements and my tent and the rest of camp. Compare the photo below to the photo of camp at sunset the previous night.



That morning was a scramble to get out before the storm. We packed up frantically, but left the tents up incase the pilot was unable to land in the now calmed 25 mph winds. The pilot said the landing was marginal. It took 30 minutes to pack the plane. But due to weight limits we had to leave stuff behind. The winds picked 2 hours after we departed, thus we have not yet been able to return. Sitting at the site is the $500k drill, a tent, fuel, and core boxes. We are closely watching for our next opportunity to retrieve everything else. Unfortunately, the next opportunity my not arise for another month, by which time our drilling engineer must be back in Alaska.

So that leaves us at now. We aim to drive 300 km back to the drill site with the spare parts, redrill the site, cache the ice cores for later pickup and drag the 1700 lbs of drilling equipment back to Raven meanwhile surveying the traverse with GPR. This goal still cannot attain our primary objectives but will get at interested questions regarding compaction, and use of radar for accumulation mapping of the Greenland Icesheet. We have 4 days to prepare.

Departure!

After speaking with Evan last night and hearing there was an 80% chance of departure - looks like the ACT coring team was finally able to get out of Kangor.  See Jason's post:  http://bprc.osu.edu/wiki/15_April%2C_2010.  I hope to hear from the team in the next few days.... Go drill crew - we're rooting for you!!
~Annie

More weather delays

Well, we are quite well prepared at this point, but mother nature is simply not cooperating. We have spent our time organizing, writing and getting minor tasks completed here that would usually be completed in the field in effort to save time once the weather improves. Now we have a strong low pressure now split across the southern tip, with an occluded front along the east coast. While our landing site is now clear, winds are 40 knots which is unacceptable for a put-in landing. Rain, unfortunately, is also in the forecast. We have spent some time preparing the cutter heads as seen below. The big choice between the two is the method used to break the core off at the bottom to pull it back up out of the hole. The inner teeth in the first image and the spring loaded beaks in the second perfom this task. Cutter width and length are also important to allow for wiggle room for the barrel and core to fit everything.


Yesterday after a full day of work we managed to get out for sunset to hike up Black Ridge outside of town.This is a view looking down to town. Of the four adjacent long and white buildings in the lower right, we are living in the second one from the top.

Weather delays

Well, we were supposed to leave yesterday, but it turns out the weather isn't all that amenable to airplanes in the southeast right now. We have one storm moving through today with another right on its tail. I'm not too bummed yet, what do you expect for the snowiest place in Greenland? The flying situation is quite interesting. Our pilot, Johan is probably in is 60s, Icelandic, has flown to every square inch on this island. We are told "he is the best." After he meets with us, all the old timers bring out their best, "It was a crazy storm and we were in trouble but then... Johan..." He's landed without seeing the ground...even after he landed. He's landed in 80 mph winds. He's taken off going backwards... Johan tells us that our place is, "difficult," and here's why. Sustrugi are large snow dunes that can be up to 3 feet tall and line up parallel to the wind. To land you just land in-between them thus hitting fewer sustrugi. But in the southeast, sometimes, the sustrugi go in two different direction thus making landing..."almost impossible." But if we arrive and the sustrugi aren't in two directions (cross our fingers) we are good. Once we land, getting picked up is "easy." See, when all there is is snow to look at, a pilot with all of his high-tech equipment can't tell if he is 20 feet off the ground or 200, the ice sheet looks the same. But Johan is really good, all he needs is a couple of people and a tent or something and then he has a reference point and he can land in almost any conditions, windier is better because his takeoff speed gets reduced. Its getting there the first time that is the trick. But for those that worry, Johan has probably flown in Greenland for 40 years, he has reduced our plane load to 600kg from 2200kg, and has set other requirements and insists that he will only do this if it is safe.Being stuck in Kanger isn't without its treats. We saw this two nights ago which was a nice treat.

Well today is our first full day in Greenland and things are going really well, except for the fact that Clement just aspirated some Perrier. Today I have begun to realize why we have been working so hard for so long, we have an absurd amount of stuff. Yesterday all of our equipment was pulled off the Herc and brought to the wherehouse. It all accumulated today in the where we were moving our gear around with fork lifts. In the photo above you can see in the yellow bag, one of our 4 tents. The core boxes that will be used to ship our cores back to NV are under the giant white tarp.
The above equipment comprises the drill. As you can see it comes in many parts that have to be assembled in the field. The total package: 800 lbs
Guess what these are? That's right, bought just for this traverse, fresh from the factory, and airlifted to Kanger. We still have to put them together.
We spent a couple hours loading the insulated core boxes with 170+ meters of core tubes you can see in the background. All of the core tubes and boxes will go into the field and once filled will remain in cold storage until a scheduled cold Herc flight later this summer. The boxes will then be transferred to refrigerator truck and driven across the country to Reno for processing. Today was lots of fun and I think we will be read for saturday!

First trip photos

I'm tired so let this be quick. For the first time in a long time, things seem to be calm and on track. Our planes are still scheduled on time, out equipment is here and our driller is great. This is a view down to the edge of a small ice cap in western greenland.Below, getting off the plane in Kangerlussuaq. It's COLD!
Me at a refueling stop in Goose Bay, CA

More blogs on ACT10

Jason has posted a really nice full description of the trip and our overall science goals that is better than the abstract that I put up. Jason will be blogging as well at his blog: http://www.meltfactor.org/blog/

The Plan

THE PLAN

April 7: Arrive in Kangerlussuaq


April 8-9: Aggressive preparation of Coring equipment, camping equipment, GPR.


April 10
:
-Twin Otter (TO): Drill Team to ACT10-A

-Drilling team makes camp and begins drilling 50m.

April 11
: Drilling


April 12: Drilling


April 13
: Disassemble/Pack
April 14
:
-TO: Drill Team from ACT10-A to ACT10-B
-
Camp is made and drilling begins to 50 m


-Jason arrives in Kanger via C-5
April 15
: Drilling


April 16
: Drilling
April 17: Disassemble/Pack
Apr18
:
-TO: Drill Team from ACT10-B to ACT10-C
-Camp is made and drilling begins to 30 m
April 19: Drilling
April 20
: Drilling / Disassemble / Pack
April21
: TO - Drill Team from ACT10-C to Kanger
April 22
: Prepare for traverse
April 23
: Herc Flight into Raven


April 24: Traverse Departs Raven to Saddle Cache -- 100 km


April 25:

-Traverse Departs Saddle Cache to ACT10-C -- 80 km

-Assemble GPS Base Station
April 26: Active GPR - Traverse 
ACT10-C to ACT10-B -- 46 km
April 28: Active GPR - Traverse ACT10-B to ACT10-A -- 50 km
April 29: Active GPR - Traverse to Low Elevation and return
April 30:
-Active GPR - Perpendicular around ACT10-A
-Move to ACT10-B
-Carry empty fuel cache
May 1:
-Active GPR - Perpendicular around ACT10-B
-Move to ACT10-C
-Carry empty fuel cache
May 2:
-Active GPR - Perpendicular around ACT10-C
-Move to ACT10-D
-If possible, carry empty fuel cache
May 3:
-Active GPR - Advance to Saddle
-Disassemble Base station
May 4-5:
-Compaction Study - Hand auger 15 m core, install coffee cans, run GPR grid around site
May 6:
-Active GPR - Resurvey ACT traverse from Saddle to ACT 2
May 7: Return to Raven - inactive GPR
May 12: Herc outflight from Raven
May 13: Organize equipment for return to US.
May 14: Rick and Jason return to US via commercial flight. Evan and Clement chill with the musk ox for ten days.
May 21: Evan and Clement return on Herc flight to NY.