WAIS News - UPDATED on 21.01.2011
A group of drillers and science techs enjoying the view of a halo and sundogs around the sun during a diamond dust day. Such optical phenomena are common over the WAIS divide camp.
(Photo: Vasileios Gkinis)
Latest news from Vasileios Gkinis, PhD student at Centre for Ice and Climate, who has participated in the WAIS divide drilling project since November 2010.
21.01.2011
We have ten days of drilling left here in WAIS divide. During the last three weeks the production of ice core was stable and no major problems have been encountered.
Last week the drill has reached two major milestones. The first was the 3km depth, celebrated with all the camp staff that raised a glass in a toast to the drillers. The second milestone was at the depth of 3053.44m. That was the depth at which the deepest US ice core was drilled back in 1993, during the GISP 2 project in Greenland.
Since January 18th 2011, WDC06A is the deepest ice core drilled by the US.
Meanwhile the weather is slowly changing and the warm temperatures experienced during the first days of January are long gone.
The process of inventorying and packing our equipment will start on Monday 24th, so drillers and core handlers are preparing for a week of non stop activity. With the drill still delivering ice until the very end of the season the last days will be a little bit more hectic than normal.
14.01.2011
It has been about a month since drilling started here at WAIS divide.
During this time the drillers have encountered a number of technical issues that they were able to address and solve successfully. As of today the drill has produced approximately 400 m of ice core reaching a depth of 2960m.
The science team has been working on logging the core, monitoring quality, temperature and other relevant parameters and most important recording and maintaining the depth scale of the ice. Operations run on a 24/6 schedule with approximately 20-25m of core drilled and logged daily.
An impressive ash layer as observed in the WAIS divide core. Numerous layers of this type have been recorded
so far. (Photo: Vasileios Gkinis)
So far we have seen some very impressive dark and thick ash layers whereas dust cloudy bands that are commonly observed in ice cores from Greenland are not seen as frequent in the WAIS divide core.
The whole camp is looking forward for the milestone of 3km depth to be reached, hopefully by the end of this week. The approximate age of this mark is about 40000 years before present with the goal for this year set to 3250m (approx. 80000 years before present).
Visit WAIS divide drilling projects web site for more information on the project.