Drilling

Evan, Jason and Clement arrived at ACT10B to find the 50 m core at that site drilled. Camp had changed a lot since we left 2 weeks prior. Remnants of our snow walls were close to buried by the wind. That evening winds picked up ahead of our first storm on the ice sheet. We battened down the hatches and awaited for morning to see if we were able to proceed.




Calling home was some time a bit harrowing. The sat phone batteries do poorly in the cold. Often we called from a phone powered by a 50 lb battery in the back of a snowmobile. It was great to be able to talk to loved ones in such a remote place.


We awoke to good conditions, the storm had slowed and we got a free sunny day. We proceeded to ACT10-A and began to drill immediately. Temperatures we borderline too warm and we had to work quickly to keep the drill below the surface as much as possible. We drilled all 50 m in one day...its amazing what you can do when the drill has all its pieces!

The drill has two barrels, inner and outer. The outer barrel sits against the side walls and holds the drill in place. The inner barrel rotates along with the cutters and carries the cut chips up between the two barrels to be deposited in a cup at the top of the inner barrel.

The drill is lowered into the hole and approximately 1m of ice is drilled. Then when the drill is brought to the surface the inner barrel has to be removed so the ice core can be extracted and transferred to core processing


The drill is quite sophisticated and requires a "driver". Extracting perfect cores with changes ice conditions, temperatures, etc. is tricky business. All sorts of problems can arise. But Terry knows his stuff and drilling went very well.

The lengths, breaks and depths of each core are carefully logged. Since each core must be dated, it is important to avoid contaminating the cores. We wore special gloves and had a specific set of protocols before the cores were sealed into plastic bags, slipped into rigged tubes and placed in padded and insulated boxes.



We spent the night at ACT10-A before returning to ACT10-B. That morning the storm arrived and we had this view for the majority of the next few days. When driving in these conditions there is really no reason to look where you are going. Staring at the GPS, watch your speed and bearing is about all you can do.

Operation Phoenix to ACT10-B

Arctic Circle Traverse Team 2010 at Raven!



Now for some more photos, we start at the beginning. Our flight into Raven was purely for our put-in which was a good thing as we did a good job filling the plane. Transferring the pallate to sleds was a times consuming task. The flight is only 45 min to Raven. Since Raven had just been put in 24 hrs ago, our landing was essentially open field, so pretty bumpy.

We finished by 8 pm but then had to finish setup of the GPS base station which took another hour. The base station remains stationary in Raven and provides corrections that can be applied to the roving GPS (on snowmobile) to provide sub-meter horizontal and vertical accuracy. We finally departed at 9pm to drive through the night and into the wind. Our strategies of how to tie down sled loads (we called strapology) were still in development and we had to stop frequently to improve our strapology. The tippyness of the Nansens became apparent quickly.

We made good progress the second day with smoother ground.

Saddle was gained on the second day. Saddle is the site of an automatic weather station and is the primary topographic saddle between the north and south domes of the Greenland Icesheet. This night was spectacular. We had a full moon rising with the setting sun opposite. At over 7500 ft, Saddle is the highest point along the traverse. Temps dropped to below -30 degrees C.



On the third day things really began to flatten out and we were able to make much better time. The Siglin sleds proved extraordinarily stable even at high speed. Each sled can haul 1000s of pounds and several sleds can easily be chained together. In this case we also carried an extra Siglin on top of another for one of the snowmachines waiting at ACT10-B.

The expedition

The expedition took a total of 20 days to complete from put-in to pull-out at Raven. That means 20 days of camping in sub-zero temperatures, 20 days without showers and 22 GB of photos. All objectives were completed however one major obstacle remains. The cores could not be extracted via snowmobile because the ice will quickly disintegrate from the bumps. Thus the core have to be extracted via twin otter. The core extraction was in our original and combined core extraction flights with repositioning flights thus saving $$$. Our current situation forces us to bring a twin otter up from Canada to do the final extraction. Flight timetables, weather and money will make this a difficult task to accomplish but we aim to complete retro flights by the 20th staging Jet fuel out of Raven and caching everything there before returning it to Kanger. The cores are burried under 2-3 feet of snow to protect from melting. However spring is coming on fast and we are uncertain how long the cores can last. I have a few photos from the expedition below.

We put in to Raven at about noon. Here our pallate was just released and we are preparing to drive the snowmachines off. At this moment we discovered that one snowmachine was missing its keys, and another machine's key broke off when turned it. We were able to hotwire the one machine and extract the broken key in the other and get all machines off quickly.


Dissassembling the pallate, building the sleds and and setting up our GPS took longer than expected. We left Raven at 9 pm and drove through the night. We saw the best aurora of my life on the way and by the time the time we began to get into bed at about 3:30 the sun was just about ready to come back up.


We towed equipment using two types of sleds. The traditional Nansen is constructed entirely of wood, rope and twine-no metal. Unfortunately these sleds were prone to tipping which can have consequences. This tip threw Jason from his machine and broke the sled but we were able to field repair. Next year we will only use the more stable Siglin Sleds.

After three long days of driving, usually into the night. Jason, Clement and Evan arrived at ACT10-B with Terry and Rick. The united team prepared to advance to the lowest, site A to drill in the data void.

The drill was working great and weather was getting warm but still no major problems. If it gets too warm the ice on the drill melts then freezing, seizing up the motor. Cold temps are a must.




Core quality was good but the huge quantity of ice layers was indicative of heavy melt. We can only hope Joe's insoluble dating can deal with the melt.

With ACT10-A compete we began our return completing GPR all of the way from ACT10-A to Raven, a total of over 250km. GPR surveying meant long days, as much as 11 hours of driving at 10km/hr. Over this period, the first days of our 5 day storm began to lay down close to 2 feet of snow.


Drilling ACT10-C was not hampered by the snowfall but instead by temperatures close to 0 degrees C. We drilled from 7-10am and from 6-11pm. As we finished the precipitation and wind subsided.





The leg from ACT10-C to Saddle was 80 km and too far to GPR in a single day. Clement and Evan left C a day early to camp along the way.


Clement and Evan stopped shortly before sunset. The snow fallen earlier had melted in near 0C temps midday and then refroze. Ropes, clothes, sleeping bags, etc. were all frozen solid (literally).

Three days later the team made it successfully back to Raven having achieved all goals!!! We were rewarded by at tour of the DYE-2 radar station. A remanat of the Cold War, the DYE stations were built as an early warning station for ballistic missiles coming from Russia. The station is 130 ft tall, and was entirely self contained, housing over 100 employees. To avoid removal costs the military pulled some fancy paperwork and deserted the station in the 80s so quickly that half eaten sandwiches were found in the cafeteria. We went inside. This is certainly the most creepy place I have been. More photos later.

Finally after waiting out a 4 day blizzard at Raven our Herc-pullout flight finally arrived on the coldest day yet. At 9 am when we left it had warmed up to -28 C.

Raven

The team has made it back to Raven. There is some concern of approaching weather that will not allow their scheduled pick-up and return to Kangerlussuaq on the 11th, however they will not know until that morning. Lets all keep our fingers crossed for clear skies!

To Saddle...

The team has successfully completed their final core! Good work team - way to shrink the peak-accumulation zone data gap! Evan and Clement left ACT10-C yesterday afternoon with the GPR, camping between ACT10-C and Saddle last night. Before they left ACT10-C, Evan reported temperatures were above freezing and he was wearing a t-shirt on the ice sheet!! Jason, Rick, and Terry left ACT10-C today and are on their way to meet Evan and Clement at Saddle, where they will work over the next few days to install the temperature sensor string and "coffee can" compaction measuring devices. The current plan is for the team to be back in Kangerlussuaq on May 11th.

Warm weather persists...

Yesterday evening, the team made it to ACT10-C. Rick, Jason, and Terry arrived by 8:30pm, while Evan and Clement were on GPR duty, getting them in closer to 11:30pm.  While dragging the GPR at 10km per hour can be a bit tedious, Evan did report freshly-fallen snow gave way to a beautiful ride. The team was able to drill 20 meters of the ACT10-C core today and hope to finish tomorrow.  They report the GPR data still look great even though today temperatures were nearing zero-degrees C! 

Back to ACT10-B...on their way to ACT10-C

The team successfully finished ACT10-A (their low-elevation coring site) and are making their way to ACT10-C - their finial coring site.  Tonight they have stopped over at ACT10-B.  The team is doing well and only anticipate one potential issue - melt! The team must leave the cores on the ice sheet to be picked up by Twin Otter May18th and the temperatures aren't quite as cold as would be ideal, however they think they can bury the cores and be OK.  Also, thankfully, Clement reports the GPR still seems to getting usable data given the warmer-than ideal temperatures. We'll cross our fingers for those cold temps!

ACT10-A Nearing Completion

With practically "fleece jacket" weather on the ice sheet today, the team has completed 38 meters of their 50-meter core.  I'm assuming "fleece jacket" weather is relative to what they've experienced thus far, as Evan reports to be wearing a down jacket over his fleece jacket and his balaclava.  The team hopes to make it to ACT10-C by tomorrow, which is their last coring site.  If good weather persists, they will complete their primary-science goals - three 50-meter cores in the data-void zone coupled with GPR.  Our fingers are crossed for the ACT10 team!