Two days and counting...

After an extended stay in MCM due to weather we are finally scheduled to fly out to the field site on Monday. The past few days have been a mad rush to box up all of our camping gear, food, science equipment, and libations... well of course we must have libations! Mark and Brent went out at to the glacier on Monday with a member of FSTP (Field Safety Training Personnel) to survey prospective sites for building the tunnel. The Taylor Glacier (TG) is a very active glacier with an average flow velocity of about 2 m per year. This activity results in large calving events along the margins. Our goal is to find a suitable location to chainsaw our tunnel... suitable is defined as an area which is not susceptible to these large calving events.

Picture of TG and the large cracks which form along the margin. Ice thickness in the picture is approximately 80-100 feet. Photo by B. Christner. *** All pictures enlarge if you click on them

We are all very excited to begin tunneling after many hours of safety briefings and trainings. We expect to tunnel approximately 10 m into the glacier. At this point we will be able to access the basal ice zone and collect samples.

Once we have collected samples I will be responsible for the geochemical analysis of the basal ice. This includes aqueous, gas, and isotopic chemical analysis of the ice samples. I also plan to investigate some of the unique features of TG. For example, the ice at TG is composed of many debris-rich bands of ice (you can see these bands from the pictures shown here). At this time there is no reasonable explanation for these features and they are of great interest to me. As we get closer to sampling I will provide more information of the particular analyses that I will conduct.

TG margin (looking up valley). The dark spots on the ground are from the helicopter touching down at different potential sample sites. Photo by B. Christner.