31 December 2024
Weather at 7pm: Temp −30°C, Wind 5 kn.
Flying day!
On this New Year’s Eve the MYIC science and drilling team flew to Concordia station. Our MYIC Dome C North (DCN) drilling site is only nine kilometres away.
Many thanks to Concordia Station, especially Station Leader Riccardo Scipinotti, who so warmly welcomed us and are hosting us for a couple of days of acclimatisation to the 3300 metre altitude. The Concordia New Year’s Eve dinner was amazing and the station was buzzing with crew coming in from the Beyond EPICA drilling site, as well as the Australian Antarctic Division's (AAD) traverse team, to celebrate the night.
Once we are acclimatised we join the AAD traverse team at DCN and will work together to set up the drilling camp.
1 January 2025
Weather at 7 pm: Temp −25°C; Wind 5 kn (estimated as our weather station is down)
After a New Year’s night at Concordia station (what a place!) we had a delightful breakfast and then a check in with the Concordia doctor. We are so far not experiencing any more than minor effects from the altitude and eager to get to our drill site and start work. Concordia felt a bit like coffee break at an international ice core and drilling conference, with scientists and drillers from Beyond EPICA and the Legacy project, as well as our team sharing ideas about ice drilling, reaming and casing. The spirit of cooperation and sharing of information in the ice core community is strong!
We said farewell to our gracious hosts at Concordia before a snow groomer came to collect us. So it is that on the first day of 2025 we arrive to the MYIC-DCN drilling camp, which the traverse team have been setting up over the past week. It is later in the season that we had hoped, but excellent to join the traverse team and start our work!
Carpenter Dave Holley led the marking out of the drill shelter base frame. This is done on a neatly prepared surface that was groomed and levelled days earlier, and allowed to harden.
Field Leader Chris Gallagher took the science team through how the field camp is operating and we enjoyed a first evening meal with the whole traverse and science team together in our MECC (mobile) shelter.
Delicious, thanks Dr Liv, who doubles as the camp cook and doctor.
3 January 2025
Weather at 7am: Temp −33°C; Wind 10 kn
Work continues on the MYIC drill shelter base frame. Over the next 4-5 years of drilling the base frame must support the weight of the drill system and winch, and the force from core breaks. Chippy Dave, who is leading this work, says "aim small, miss small". True to his motto he has set out the structure to within five millimetres, using a laser level and string lines from hurdles.
Meanwhile Daniel and Joel completed an initial ApRES (Autonomous phase-sensitive Radio-Echo Sounder) survey near the drill site. This radar system can operate autonomously to monitor the physical characteristics of the ice and bedrock depth.
The Eclipse drill was set up for some initial shallow coring, away from the main drill shelter. Chelsea and Chris worked on a temporary core processing line for this shallow ice core.
It is very satisfying to have such good progress on the drill shelter and the Eclipse drill set up.
4 January 2025
Weather at 6pm: Temp −25°C; Wind 5 kn
First ice drilled at MYIC-DCN!
This morning we completed set up of the Eclipse drill outside of the main drill shelter. Just after lunch we drilled the first ice core from Dome C North. The whole camp came over to watch the action.
The day started at −32°C, but with no wind and full sun it was comfortable working outside. By the afternoon the sun on the drill was causing melt and binding up of ice chips, so we switched from glaciology to tarpology and rigged up some shade for the core processing benches.
As of writing at 5 pm we are at 10 metre drill depth.
The drill shelter base frame comes along quickly now. The main supporting cross beams are in place and the first metre of the drill trench was cut out by chainsaw.
A good day on the ice!
5 January 2025
Weather at 6pm: Temp −25°C; Wind 0 kn (balmy!)
We put the Eclipse drill ‘to sleep’ down the borehole last night. This is standard practice and after challenges with the drill getting too warm in the sun yesterday we wanted it cold. Pulling it up out of the hole in the morning we found that it would not spin. It’s −55°C at 10 metres down the borehole, which we expect turned the transmission fluid (ATF Dextron 2) to something like butter. Nothing the heat gun could not resolve, and soon we were drilling again. From now on we’ll leave the drill suspended hanging in the trench overnight where the temperature is more like −40°C.
We tried removing the springs from the 'core dogs' to improve core quality in the soft firn (core dogs are spring-loaded devices in the drill that hold an ice sample in place while it's being retrieved). But we then failed to grab the core at all on a couple of runs. So we put them back. We’re happy to learn these lessons on this shallow core so that when the drill shelter construction is complete, and we move to the main borehole, we will be more efficient.
Once past about 15 metres the core quality improved and we brought up cores mostly around one metre-long, which is the length the Eclipse drill is designed for. Derryn did a lot of drilling today, getting the skills tuned up for the main borehole. Next season we will bring in the AAD deep drill, which takes three metre-long cores.
We also tested a borehole logger, which Derryn built for installation in the Eclipse drill. The logger records borehole orientation and includes a camera. More on the results of that test in the next days.
We finished the day with a driller’s depth of 30.79 m. The age of the ice at this depth is estimated at 490 years.
The first four boxes of cores were carefully packed and moved to a trench in the firn.
Our ApRES data indicates bedrock at a depth of 3073 to 3074 m.
6 January 2025
Weather at 6pm: Temp −22°C; Wind 9 kn.
Drilling depth finished at 52.2 m today for the shallow core we are drilling away from the main borehole.
Late yesterday and for the first cores this morning we were getting ‘hangers’, where the core would come up with about 20 centimetres protruding from the end of the barrel. This means the 'core dogs' (spring-loaded devices that hold an ice sample in place while it's being retrieved) are not grabbing tightly enough during core breaks. We changed to firmer dog springs and the cores thereafter came up consistently in near one metre lengths.
The data from the borehole survey yesterday gave a borehole inclination of around 1 degree. This is good. We’ll be very happy with that for the main borehole.
At the drill shelter build, the final floor beams were secured into the base frame and the metal perimeter frame laid out over the timber. Then we started with blowing snow into the frame using a walk-behind snow blower.
The Pisten Bulley pre-tilled the snow for the small groomer to then blow into the frame (see photo). The blown snow sinters (bonds) together into a firm and hard surface that will lock the floor together. Over the hardened snow we’ll add plastic ‘geo-hex’ grid to provide a grippy work surface.
Chippy Dave levelled the blown snow into the frame like concrete. It’s coming up nicely.
