In January/February 2009 an ice road between the camp and Site 5011-1 on Lake El´gygytgyn was established (Figs. 1, 3b). Subsequently, an ice pad of 100 m diameter at the drill site was artificially thickened to 2.3 m to allow for lake drilling operations from the 100-ton drilling platform. The Russian GLAD 800 was developed for extreme cold and operated by the U.S. consortium DOSECC. It consisted of a modified Christensen CS-14 diamond coring rig positioned on a mobile platform that was weather-protected by insulated walls and a tent on top of the 20-m-high derrick. The system was permanently imported into Russia, where it is now available for scientific drilling projects at no cost until 2014.
