Location: Recovery Lake “B”, northern part, 82º 37’ S, 17º 52’ E
Weather: Low clouds and diamond dust, -20 C, wind 4 kts

This cryptic place name identifies Nor-US traverse, season 2008-2009, science stop number 5.  In plain text we are over the northern end of Recovery Lake B.  This site was to be the first of two (relatively) deep drilling sites for this traverse, and the drill team – Lou, Ole, Tom and Stein – have now reached the bottom at 95 meters.  Due to a technical mishap we stopped somewhat short of the target at 120 meters, but nevertheless deeper than any core we drilled last season.  In addition, Tom, Zoe and Andreas have hand drilled several short cores for chemical analyses.  Very weak snow layers at 3-5 meters depth frustrated some of their attempts, but such conditions are to be expected in this cold and dry environment, and they succeeded at last.

After the deep ice core was taken up, Zoe sent her specially designed camera all the way down the drill hole to measure light reflectance data, which indirectly gives her information about  the grain size of the snow and ice layers at various depths.  Finally, the drill hole will be equipped with a string of thermistors that will remain on the site and keep recording and transmitting very accurate temperature data from deep layers for years to come. Ted and Andreas have already put up a large tripod with solar panels and communication hardware, and the string of temperature sensors are being prepared.

Zoe is also the snow sampler par excellence.  From her 2 meter snow pits (1,5 tons of snow shovelled out of each pit, remember?) she has extracted samples for chemical, density, stratigraphy, isotopic content, permeability, thermal conductivity and grain size analyses, grain size photography, and near infrared layer photography. No less!  She is also doing some of her analysis work on site, spending hours over her work bench in the sledge-mounted science tent.

The radar and gravimetry team has been busy outside of the main camp.  Anna, Kirsty, Ted, Einar and Stein have completed 3 full days of side traverses, crisscrossing lakes A and B to collect extensive data on the lakes’ extent, depth and ice cover with their 5 radars and 2 gravimeters. 

The technical and logistics team – John, Svein, Einar, and Andreas – have been across to our air dropped fuel cache some 5 kilometres away and collected all 72 fuel drums.  Empty fuel drums have been stacked and the fuel sledges have been reorganised, as have all our food and ice core boxes.  The vehicles have had an oil change, a broken drive wheel replaced and several small repairs completed.  The camp facilities have also received a few improvements – like new steps to the “little house”, eliminating the need for a one meter jump off the sled after “business completed”.

Most of the above has been documented on film for the NPI image library, and in text and photography for various recipients.  Even looking through the footage is exhausting!  However, a stop of several days will always give us some slack while waiting for others to complete tasks, and this is our bonus.  Most of us have had time for some skiing (soft snow, level tracks, endless views), and a gang of four has even been seen playing cards late at night.

The best of all though: We are exactly on schedule!

Svein busy in the workshop module, perfecting one of his innumerable inventions and implements. Photo: Stein Tronstad/NPI