29 November 2025 - 5 December 2025

29 and 30 November 2025

Location: Dome C North (DCN)—MYIC Inland Station, 75.0422°S, 123.6312°E, 3239 m asl.

Personnel at DCN: Damien Beloin (traverse leader), Derryn Harvie (deputy traverse leader & drill engineer), David Holley (carpenter), Ed Maguire (diesel mechanic), Kris Keen (diesel mechanic), Andy Lewis (electrician), Meg O’Connell (medical doctor), Dane Eden (diesel mechanic), Thom Whyte (electrician), Lenneke Jong (MYIC glaciologist), Julius Rix (MYIC driller), Joel Pedro (MYIC science lead), Chris Richards (MYIC drill technician), Chris Young (MYIC drill technician).

Weather at DCN: • Air temp: -31 ˚C • Wind speed: 4 - 10 knots

Inland Station Operations, Science, Drilling

Yesterday (Saturday 29th) the MYIC team packed down the quad pod and winches used for installing casing and generally tidied up in the drill shelter. We also cut a slot down the side of the drill trench ready to install the permanent ventilation ducting into the drill trench. Sunday is generally a quieter rest day at the inland station. We completed a couple small jobs including installing the ventilation pipe in its slot, while Derryn spent some time setting up our 3D printer. The traverse team are working to bring the new Kitchen MECC and Amenities building into full operation. This is no easy task as it involves plumbing at -30˚C. But we are getting there with the kitchen now in use and extra toilet and shower in operation.

Saturday night is something to look forward to in the field camp. It was too cold and windy for an outside BBQ, so the steak and sausages were brought into the new kitchen where chippy Dave and Eddie showed their skills with the tongs.

Meanwhile, the inland station’s new dart board capability is in full testing. Who will go down in history with the first DCN shang? ‘One Battle After Another’ on the projector in the mess was a good finish to the evening.

A wooden frame with a pipe going down in the ice — The fixed ventilation pipe now installed into the drill. Photo: Joel Pedro

1 December, 2025

Location: Dome C North (DCN)—MYIC Inland Station, 75.0422°S, 123.6312°E, 3239 m asl.

Personnel at DCN: Damien Beloin (traverse leader), Derryn Harvie (deputy traverse leader & drill engineer), David Holley (carpenter), Ed Maguire (diesel mechanic), Kris Keen (diesel mechanic), Andy Lewis (electrician), Meg O’Connell (medical doctor), Dane Eden (diesel mechanic), Thom Whyte (electrician), Lenneke Jong (MYIC glaciologist), Julius Rix (MYIC driller), Joel Pedro (MYIC science lead), Chris Richards (MYIC drill technician), Chris Young (MYIC drill technician).

Weather at DCN: • Air temp: -34 ˚C • Wind speed and direction: 5-8 knots, SSW 170˚ • Forecast for next 24 hours: Partly cloudy. Winds: S/SE 5/10 knots. Min/Max: -36/-28 ° C

Inland Station Operations, Science, Drilling

In the drill shelter today the focus was on installing the stainless-steel channels that will collect any Estisol drill fluid draining from the end of the drill as it is tilted on its arc from vertical to horizontal. The casing was cut 5793 mm from the top of the trench level and a tundish installed into the casing that connects into the channel. The channel required a bit of packing out and a touch of welding from Chris Young, by mid afternoon we had it in place.

The rest of the day was spent clearing space in the drill shelter ready to begin assembly of the large drill tower. Lenneke did some preparatory work for beginning our ApRES surveys in installation of temperature strings into the firn.

Elsewhere in camp, chippy Dave is working away in his shop making shelves for the kitchen and sparkies Thom and Andy installed a new pump and won the battle against the elements delivering running hot and cold water into the new kitchen. Hooray!

Continuing the spirit of cooperation up here at Dome C, Damien and Eddie drove in the traverse Pisten Bulleys to help the Concordians with grooming a road to move a building.

Unfortunately, we have had a couple people unwell with a respiratory virus.

Our doctor and AAD Polar Medicine Unit are helping manage this, including some quarantine time in the sleeper vans to try to prevent the spread. We are looking forward to getting all our team members healthy and out and about again.

Long piping in a deep ice trench — Installing the drip channel up the length of the drill slot Photo: Joel Pedro

Two men smiling near a switchboard in a trailer

2 December, 2025

Location: Dome C North (DCN)—MYIC Inland Station, 75.0422°S, 123.6312°E, 3239 m asl.

Weather at DCN: • Air temp: -31 ˚C • Wind speed and direction: 5 knots, SSW 190˚ • Forecast for next 24 hours: Mostly cloudy. High chance of low cloud or freezing fog in the morning. A chance of ice crystals. Winds: Variable below 10 knots, tending W in the afternoon. Min/Max -37/-30 ˚C

Inland Station Operations, Science, Drilling

We made good progress today toward setting up the deep drill tower. First cut away the plastic grid from the planned footprint of the tower. This is to expose the wooden beams that the drill tower will rest on and be fixed too.

Then with help from Kris driving the Skid Steer and Challenger with crane the tower was pulled out of its storage container and moved over to the drill shelter. We then used a winch to slide the tower toward the drill trench. Tomorrow we will keep working to build the tower and fix in its ultimate location where it must tilt directly over and plumb with the borehole.

Outside the drill shelter Damien prepared a groomed and tilled area where the snow surface will set hard to build a mechanical service shelter. The diesel mechanics and electricians continue with the essential work that drilling operations and everything else here depends on: refuelling, maintaining power, vehicles and water. Great work by the team in the cold conditions today.

A group of people stand around a long silver pipe inside a white tent — The drill tower edging closer to its final resting place. Photo: Joel Pedro

A set of shelves with plastic containers on them

3 December, 2025

Location: Dome C North (DCN)—MYIC Inland Station, 75.0422°S, 123.6312°E, 3239 m asl.

Weather at DCN: • Air temp: -31 ˚C • Wind speed and direction: 2-3 knots, W 280˚ o Forecast for next 24 hours: Mostly clear. Winds: Variable below 10 knots, tending W in the afternoon. Max: -30° C Inland Station Operations, Science, Drilling A beautiful day at DCN. There has been next to no wind to bite us and excellent progress was made on installing the deep drill tower.

The key tasks completed today were connection of the full boom and careful adjustment of the position of the tower (with winch, crow bar and shims) so that the drill sonde, when installed, will hang plumb over the borehole. Credit is due here to last years’ team who so precisely installed the timber base frame that the tower rests on. The steel channel of the tower base sat dead level over the beams and only 3mm of packing only was needed for the 9 m boom to stand perfectly vertical over the borehole.

We now have a tilting tower, but there are a couple weeks of work yet before we will threaten any ice. Fixing down of the tower and set up of all the control and communication systems is still to do and will continue over the next days.

Some will note the major missing pieces still missing in these shots: our drill winch, drill fluid handling system and the drill sonde are needed to complete the picture. These components are currently en-route with the French (IPEV) traverse after shipping from Hobart on the Frech ice breaker L’Astrolabe. We expect to receive them in about a week and have plenty to go on with before then to be ready to assemble the complete system.

Outside the drill shelter work continues preparing the site for the mechanical shelter and Damien and Dane drove to Concordia station to help them move a building with our Challenger tractors.

Two peope crouching over a frame that is wide at the bottom and narrow at the top — Extending the tower subframe (the wider part of the frame is where the deep drill winch will sit) Photo: Joel Pedro

A person using equipment to secure the concrete frame

4 December, 2025

Location: Dome C North (DCN)—MYIC Inland Station, 75.0422°S, 123.6312°E, 3239 m asl.

Weather at DCN: • Air temp: -33˚C • Wind speed and direction: 4 knots, W 280˚ • Forecast for next 24 hours: Moderate chance of low cloud or freezing fog in the morning. Winds: Variable below 10 knots. Min/Max -38/-23 ˚C

Inland Station Operations, Science, Drilling

Today we are happy to have everyone healthy and out and about working together again. Yay! Fingers crossed we’ve seen the last of the respiratory virus that was not much fun for folks at this altitude in a remote camp. Thanks to Dr Meg for the good care and to the team for stoically handling the measures to stop it spreading.

Our main tasks today were continued work on the deep drill tower. This included the electronics (running and terminating cables, connecting and adjusting limit switches, running cable through conduit etc) and on the physical side fixing down of the subframe with more drilling through the heavy stainless PFC sections along with installation of drip trays along the sub-frame.

The trays are to collect any drill fluid (Estisol 140) dripping from the winch and cable and deliver it back into the borehole. These are not spectacular jobs, but attention to all the details is essential as we build up the full deep drilling system.

Outside the drill shelter the base frame of the mechanical tent is now in place and levelled to Chippy Dave’s discerning standards on a hard-packed base. The day finished with some sensational lamb shanks in red-wine sauce prepared by sparky Andy. It’s cosy in the mess with good food after a long day of work, and one forgets for a while the 3 km of ice below us.

Two people huddled over wiring and the frame — Wiring up, running through conduit and terminating the tower control electronics Photo: Joel Pedro

A large wooden frame on a white snowy flat

5 December, 2025

Location: Dome C North (DCN)—MYIC Inland Station, 75.0422°S, 123.6312°E, 3239 m asl

Weather at DCN: • Air temp: -31 ˚C • Wind speed and direction: 2-3 knots, W 280˚ o Forecast for next 24 hours: cloud increasing. Possible freezing fog in the morning. Winds: NW/NE below 10 knots. Min/Max: -36/-24 ° C

Inland Station Operations, Science, Drilling

Another beautiful sunny and still day at DCN. The MYIC team continued with organising the drill shelter in preparation for arrival next week of the deep drill winch, drill fluid handling system and drill sonde components and all free hands helped with completing the mechanical shelter base frame. Lenneke continued work preparing to deploy our ApRES units (autonomous phase sensitive radio echo sounding) to sites occupied last season.

An initial set of calibration tests were done of the drill tower crown-sheeve wheel load cell. Making use of equipment available on site, tractor weights were suspended over the crown-sheeve. The nice linear results (see picture below) indicate the load cell is behaving as it should. Further calibration will be completed once the winch arrives and is coupled into the system. The crown sheeve is the wheel at the top of the tower over which the drill cable runs, it provides critical information during drilling, lowering and raising the sonde and core breaks.

By the end of the day the mechanical tent base frame is complete. Snow was blown into the frame using our the snow blower attachment on the skid steer loader. The snow blower mechanically breaks the snow into small particles which then bond rapidly together (the process is called sintering). Following the technique used last year a concrete screed, and dumpy level are used to produce a level surface that bonds within hours. It was many hands and hours on the shovels filling the low points and shovelling out the high to get the result you see in the pictures.

Elsewhere in camp the dieso team completed some checks and servicing on vehicles and the sparkies tuned one of the gensets. You got to have some variety in a field camp – thanks to Andy, DCN now has an ice volley ball court. Friday evening in the low wind was good for trying our digs and spikes. Welcoming any and all local and travelling teams to visit for a friendly.

A man with snow all over his beanie and buff — Chippy Dave after a session screeding blown snow for the drill mechnical shelter Photo: T. Whyte

A graph showing a straight line from bottom left to top right

People flattening and levelling snow inside a wooden fram

6 and 7 December, 2025

Location: Dome C North (DCN)—MYIC Inland Station, 75.0422°S, 123.6312°E, 3239 m asl.

Weather at DCN: • Air temp: -27 ˚C • Wind speed and direction: 1 – 3 knots, W 280˚ • Forecast next 24 hours: Partly cloudy. Winds: Variable below 10 knots. Min/Max -31/-23 ˚C

Inland Station Operations, Science, Drilling

The good weather kept on at DCN for the weekend. The MYIC and Traverse teams worked until midday on Saturday and then took a rest day on Sunday to charge up for the week ahead.

On Saturday morning Lenneke and Julius completed an ApRES (autonomous phase sensitive radio echo sounding) survey at a location established last year close to the drill site. In this technique, radio waves are emitted into the ice sheet from a transmitting antennae at the surface and recorded by a receiving antennae after being reflected by internal layers within the ice sheet.

By repeating the measurements each season we gain information on the relative vertical motion of internal layers. This is in turn very helpful for understanding ice flow and as in input to models used to derive the depth-age relationship in climate record recovered from the ice core. Back at the drill shelter work continues preparing the drill system electronics, along with making wooden brackets to hang and organise drill barrels from the side of our core processing benches and trench railing, and building racks for ice core storage. Containers with the mechanical tent parts were unloaded near the site of the mechanical shelter, ready to start building next week. Station general maintenance was carried out and the road groomed out to the traverse roads junction.

Saturday evening saw Dr Meg and Chris Y turn the mess turn into Antarctica’s best burger joint! Then Top Gun won the vote for Friday movie night. A few pictures of camp life over the rest of the weekend to follow, including wildlife spotting and some more volley ball.

A person crouched over equipment in the snow — Lenneke completing an ApRES survey close to camp. Note the two antennae located by the reference canes installed last season. Photo: J. Rix

A plate with a chicken burger, cheese and chips

A group of people playing volleyball on the snow

This content was last updated 19 hours ago on 8 December 2025.