Sunday, December 21, 2008

Christmas Week Is Here

1 meter Ice Core Coming down the tray
Hey everyone....quick update here. It's three days till Christmas and you wouldn't even know it here. Everyone is so busy getting the new ice cores up and catalogued. We have already passed 640 meters (we ended at 580 last year). I have been busy with a few small projects as well. Earlier this week, I helped a fellow scientist, Robert, install a seismic station for the Polenet project and I have also been cutting density and isotope samples from my snow pit.
We been enjoying what little free time we have with some x-country skiing and softball games. There's also a huge collection of DVDs here that we all watch. A few nights ago we watched an episode from the Canadian series "Trailer Park Boys" and our camp medic Phil decided to turn Tent City into Sunnyvale Trailer Park. As you can tell...we get a little crazy being down here for too long :-)
Phil having a little fun with "tent city" :-)
Loading up a sled with seismic equipment
I would love to update more completely but there's always people waiting for the computers here. Long story short for the week:
We all are treated to a Christmas dinner on Wednesday night and we get Christmas off. (although we will then work the following Sunday). There's a camp gift exchange that we all are a part of...usually consisting of a lot of homemade things. We officially go to three shifts today (24 hour coring) and our ice-coring plan is to get approximately 15-18 runs per day (30-36 meters) starting today. Yesterday I was donated an Artic Oven tent and was able to upgrade from my sierra designs mountain tent. It is nice to finally have a roomy tent. (although it is a little colder). I am going to start assisting with taking DEP readings from the ice cores this week. DEP stands for Dielectric Profile and is one of the only scientific measurements made to the core here on site before getting shipped back to denver.
I hope to get a few more pics posted in the next few days as well.
Also...The "official" wais blog is located here:
waisdivideoutreach.blogspot.com
(I updated it friday and will again this friday)
-john

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