Müller Ice Cap Daily Report Friday May 16

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 Daily Report for 16 May 2025

Today we did not manage to retrieve more core from the main bore hole. At a depth of 603m we encountered the first rocks in the ice and managed to drill through them, until approx. 613m, where we have clearly reached a non-ice layer that we cannot penetrate. Hence, by dinner time our drilling captain Julien declared the main core drilling operation complete. Due to the amazing effort of several camp and drill teams we managed to reach our goal, drilling an ice core through the Müllers ice cap! Our estimate of the final depth of the core is 612.98m (probably +/- 2cm as the 3 final cores have not been fitted together). We have decided to celebrate this great ice coring achievement tomorrow, as part of our festive Saturday tradition.

The firn-gas drilling and sampling is also making good progress with another two levels sampled today and another 8m drilled.

 

What we have done today:

- Completed the main core drilling operation, as further drilling into bed/silty ice was not possible.

- Logged depth 611.85m after which 3 cores were drilled: 25cm, 12cm and 76cm, final depth estimate thus: 612.98m

- Continued drilling of shallow core for firn-gas sampling, current depth: 43m. 

- Continued firn-gas sampling, two more levels sampled.

 

We are 13 in camp (Alison, Etienne, Iben, Rebecca, Fei, Richard, Nicholas, Tessa, Nerilie, Anais, Jamie, Julien and Bo)

 

Alison Criscitiello and Bo Vinther.

 

Wx at Müller: Mainly sunny with a few clouds in the afternoon. Wind decreased from 5kn in the morning to 1-3kn in afternoon and  evening, turning from 270 deg true to 320 deg true and back to 270 deg true, temperatures between -20 and -4 deg C.


Caption: “Arnold” as the drillers call the crunching device we can mount on our main core drill system, was given both a drink and a toast before being send down the bore hole, in a last attempt to clear the hole from whatever is blocking our drill effort. Despite this gesture, we were not able to drill any deeper, and thus conclude that the main drilling operation is over after a successful drilling effort!   


 

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