Daily News Apr 21 - Apr 24, 2009
April 21, 2009
Daily News:
Today we waited again for parts and mud. The mud is still not here but is somewhere on the snow road to the camp. The worst luck ever was that Christian Koeberl's plane from Moscow to Pevek was delayed an entire day so he will not arrive until Wednesday, April 22 with the needed hard rock lifter cases we need. We hope to expedite his immigration papers to Chukotka so he can fly to the Lake with the parts on Thursday, April 23. This then gives us 9 days of drilling as planned.
On a sad note, however, today we had to ask Uli Raschke, a student from Berlin to fly home from Moscow where he had been eagerly waiting to fly to Pevek with Christian. We learned late this afternoon that the Anadyr Government would not give him a permit with clearance for a visit to Chukotka. Had his plane been on time and he had flown to Pevek, the project would have face fines and Uli would have sat in Pevek anyway. So we are all baffled and disappointed.
The good news today is that Volker Wennrich and I were able to download the data logger and storage module from the Yuri Met station constructed by Matt Nolan in 2000, located at the south end of the lake. The station was repaired in 2001, and has been collecting data ever since. We need to analyze the data to determine what instruments stopped working when, but the station was still recording some data until we took it apart a few days ago. So with luck Matt will have a nearly continuous data set 8 years in length to work with.
The sky has been pretty clear today but the wind is picking up tonight after a daytime high of about -12 C.
take care...Julie BG
April 22, 2009
Daily News:
Today was very special not only because it was Grisha Fedorov's 36th Birthday. Grisha is doing an outstanding job for us here and has been so dedicated over the life of the project. A small celebration with candy bars was enjoyed in the camp office.
The mud was loaded onto the drilling platform in the morning and then Christian Koeberl arrived at 5 PM by helicopter with the necessary hard rock lifter cases. After being delayed in Moscow he arrived in Pevek, changed shoes to boots and was whisked away to the lake by helicopter --- extremely unusual but great luck for us. We thank Dimitry Kozelov, Head ChukotHydromet Administration, and also Airport Director Evdokimov along with the pilots for their support.
The night shift started work by straightening out a small bend in the hole below 500m-driller depth where the angle was about 2 deg and not 0. With that fixed, core recovery resumed.
Weather is cool, highs of only -17 C today with a strong wind from the north and reduced visibility on the ground due to snow blowing. Blue skies otherwise.
Cheers and lets hope the drilling goes smoothly over the next 10 days. sincerely, Julie BG
April 23, 2009
Daily News:
Today we were back in the drilling business but had some new problems that presented a challenge. The rig itself is overheating because of the bentonite that has been blown into the radiator over the past few weeks. More than a few hours were spent today trying to cool off the rig hydraulics. Everyone was frustrated and how ironic! to have it overheat with the outside temperatures around -17 C! The day shift ended at -413. 28 m with about 50% recovery of monomitic brecciated volcanic target rock. Christian tells us this is the uplifted basement rock that was shattered during rebounded with crater formation. He now has a balok all set up next to the office where he can lay out the rocks we have cored so far and start his descriptions; he is even sleeping in there too.
Its been very windy here in camp; lots of blowing snow but no new precipitation. take care...Julie BG
April 24, 2009
Daily News:
Drilling of the impact sequences continued today despite a long night and half the day with very high winds over 50 mph, blowing snow and low ground visibility. The morning shift was delivered to the platform by bus and escorted by one of the bulldozers (took 1.5 hrs). The night shift returned by vezdahot to camp (only 30 mins). The dozer did a great job removing snow from the north side of the platform and Volker Neth's snow fences are working well.
The weather forecast over the next few days is for more variable winds with gusts to 45 mph (20 m/sec), however the winds slackened considerably late today and it’s probably just a lull. Temperatures should be lows of -22 to -27 C and highs -9 to -14 deg C.
We are now down to -446 m below lake floor and starting to get into more solid monomitic brecciated volcanic target rock and less of the broken breccias. We will get some pictures of the rocks up on the ICDP web site soon. Drilling continued all day without any problems with the overheating of the hydraulics.
Besides a successful day of drilling, the platform crew watched a herd of ~40 caribou only a kilometer east of the rig.
cheers from here....Julie BG
Impressum