A Season for Everything

In the summer of 2004, I had another field season in Greenland. This time around, I ended up co-ordinating folks from 7 different agencies on 3 different NSF funded projects and 2 European projects. Some of the players were again familiar- I started in the field again with Gregg Lamorey, and Ryan joined us partway through. For this season, though, I had several significant objectives to cover for my own project, including drilling several shallow boreholes at 2 different locations and making 2 separate trips to the field to make measurements at different times. Also coming into the project was Simon Sheldon, a Brit working with the Danes who I knew from the North GRIP season, and Liz Morris, from the Scott Polar Research Institute.

This season we had plenty to do:

Logging sonic velocity in the ice, which tells us about the crystal orientation of the ice grains.

Unpacking the sonic logging tool. It's very long, but flexible sections make it easy to ship.

Shallow drilling:

ICDS drillers Jay Kyne and Beth Bergeron using the "Prarie Dog", a drill of Jay's own design.

Gregg Lamorey and Liz Morris making measurements on the core as it comes out of the drill.

Logging the shallow holes with my newest Borehole Optical Stratigraphy tool:

Greg, Mark Albershardt, and me (L-R) logging a shallow borehole. The sewer pipe is a shallow casing that protects the sides of the borehole as we repeatedly raise and lower instruments.