Surf To Deep Drilling Projects
Published on 15.06.2008 - Greenland Northward Expedition 2008
The two Finns have had the excellent idea of visiting places of historical interest. This week, they're zooming in on deep drillings.
On 5 June, the two men had eaten away half their victuals. By then they had covered 1,597 kilometres and had approximately 900 more ahead of them before they reached the port and town of Qanaaq.
Their morale was riding high (as always), and they still had 44 more days of rations on their sledge, which seemed to be enough to complete their journey. They are averaging 20 to 25 kilometres per day and are not having to cope with overly extreme temperatures - minus 10° by day and minus 30° by night. So everything's OK.
The most interesting parts of their trek aren't the sporting adventures but rather the places they are seeing en route. Last week, we saw them pass by the Greenland Summit Camp station, and, this time, they are going past an old drilling station, NorthGrip (North Greenland Icecore Project), which was abandoned in August 2004 and from which researchers had drilled down to a depth of 3,084 metres in July 2003.
A few days later, the two Finns reached another research station, NEEM (North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling), which was, for her part, filled with activity. Here, fourteen nations are rubbing shoulders under the aegis of the NSF (National Science Foundation) and are carrying out deep drilling projects.
If you surf to the various websites devoted to these projects, you can learn all about the deep drillings taking place on the Greenland's icecap.
