Back to Greenland

After the Siple Dome project, I thought I was done with the field for a while, but it was not to be. In the usual manner, I got a call with a request to join a field team. This time it was Gregg Lamorey, from the Desert Research Institute at the University of Nevada in Reno. Gregg was planning a trip back to Summit, Greenland, to do more deep logging in the GISP2 and GRIP boreholes. My job for this season was mostly to run the USGS deep logging winch, and Gregg would handle the logger operations.

The USGS deep logging winch- there are 4 kilometers of cable on that spool!

Ryan Bay came on this trip as well and brought with him Nathan Bramall, who'd joined our team at Siple Dome during the 3rd season. They planned to use the dust logger and also test a new tool that they were developing called the Biospectral Logger (BSL).

It was an epic season. Some sould call it a "Shackleton season" in that we faced some seemingly insurmountable difficulties but were able, at the end of the season, to return home all in one piece and with most of the data we'd been seeking. The difficulties we faced included getting a tool stuck deep in the borehole, having the connector at the end of the cable break, and having the winch drive mechanism break several times while borehole tools were down the hole. In all cases, we were able to eventually overcome the problem, but the final breakage prevented Ryan and Nathan from getting some important data they were hoping for.