Getting in the GreenTrACS Groove!

It was a big milestone to finally arrive at Core 8, after traveling over 400 km from Summit, and setting up and breaking down camp every night.  The GreenTrACS team could now start the routine work of coring, radar, pits, and the luxury of staying in the same camp for 3-4 nights at a time at each core site. Below are some pictures from Core 8, the trip back to Core 7 for the fuel cache, and work at Core 9.  The GreenTrACS team is really getting in the groove!

Karina and Gabe were chomping at the bit to get drilling, and promptly drilled over 30 meters in 2 days at Core 8!  These two are an amazing drill team.

Snowpit at Core 7.  Rubber mallet was key for slamming in the density cutter without damaging equipment.

The fuel barrels that the team left from the 2016 traverse at Core 7 were still there - 75+ gallons of fuel, yay!

Karina made some amazing cornbread in the Coleman oven, what a treat after our trip to Core 7 and back in 2 days.

HP getting way too excited about another snowpit.

Forrest checking in with base camp in Kangerlusuaq via sat phone.

FMCW 6-18 GHz radar (left) and multi-offset 500MHz and 1 GHz radar systems (right).  The FMCW radar system provides <1cm resolution of the upper 10 meters, while the unique multi-offset radar systems provide independent density and snow layer thickness estimates in the upper 20-30 meters.

The sastrugi was beautiful, but very hard on equipment.  Lots of wear and tear on the radar systems, and the polypod loved to auger into these larger drifts...we got lots of practice digging it out and getting snowmobiles unstuck.

Karina sampling snow chemistry at Core 8.

Gabe collecting a temperature profile in the snowpit and preparing to sample at Core 9.

Tate photographing the snowpit wall at Near-InfraRed (NIR) wavelengths.  These wavelengths are most sensitive to grain size, and provide a record of the snow stratigraphy.  The stiff brush in the foreground is also very helpful for finding wind and sun crusts in last winter's snowpack.

Hawaiian shirt night for HP's last dinner before leaving the ice sheet.  What a great group of snow geeks!