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Field and CPL Updates

2007-2008 Antarctica

January 22, 2008
Update provided by Ken Taylor
project update image
Photo from team WAIS Divide, the team at the camp on January 22. Thanks to these enduring women and men for their performance this season. Photo: Brian Bencivengo

We have completed our first season of deep coring at WAIS Divide. In the two weeks available for production drilling we drilled from 114 m to 580 m. The core is just starting to become brittle. RPSC provided a comfortable and efficient camp and drill shelter. ICDS pulled up excellent core and even made it look easy. NICL developed a smooth way to handle and curatethe core. The DEP shows nice annual layers. There were no major injuries to our crew and the camp had a lot of spirit and enthusiasm right to the end. Although the time available for production drilling was shorter then we hoped due to weather and infrastructure delays, I still consider the season to be a success because we recovered a lot of core, had no major work related accidents, and are well set up for next year. All of this core will be available for processing at NICL this summer.

Cheers from the 36 person drill, core handling and camp crew,

Ken Taylor
WAIS Divide Ice Core Project Chief Scientist,
Professor,
Desert Research Institute