Lake E News of the Day April 4
Last night the platform crew completed the job of cleaning out and stabilizing the hole at D1 all the way to -150 m sediment depth by circulating mud. This provided the ideal conditions for down hole logging before we take on the difficult task of working our way down through and out of this unexpected sand and gravel unit. Jochem Kuck and Martin Topfer of the ICDP-OSG, assisted by Catalina Gebhardt and the normal day shift crew, methodically started logging the hole in 50-meter sections starting with the lowest materials from 100 to 150 meters.
Measurements included magnetic susceptibility, natural gamma, spectral gamma, electrical resistivity, sonic velocity and temperature. They also used an acoustic camera to image the borehole walls for structure and particle size information. Logging continued over the entire day shift today and continues now over the night shift with the expectation that logging could be completed by morning. The results so far from the logging show that, with the exception of the bottom 20 meters, the magnetic susceptibility measurements alone are almost useless because of the interference caused by the proximity of one of the lost drill pipes in either core site 1a or 1b.
Other news - the heavy pump work last night apparently was too much for the mud transfer pump that stopped working altogether. Volker Neth contacted Kinross again and they have promised to allow us to borrow a pump once again. Martin Melles, still in Pevek, will pick up the pump on Monday and send it out on the next helicopter scheduled for April 8 with Joe Bolin and Jerry Jensen (DOSECC) on board. They fly in from Moscow on Tuesday.
The convoy that left Pevek on April 1 with all of our remaining casing, mud, and the Kawasaki mule is currently stuck with one broken down truck about 80 kms from the lake. They were expected to arrive today. Instead, the camp here is sending out a bulldozer and sled to recover the materials from the handicap vehicle.
Volker Neth resurveyed the road to the platform to check ice thickness and freeboard. The ice is now 1.5 meters nearly everywhere with the exception of one place where it’s about 1.2 m thick.
Our luck with the weather continues. Today was again clear and calm with lows to
-30 C and day temps in the range of -20C or so.
Cheers from the Lake....Julie BG
