On January 25th we finished drilling! The final depth of the ice collected was 2561.57m! We collected over 1,000m of ice this season and are hopefully on track to finish drilling next year. Replicate coring will hopefully follow in the 2011-2012 season. It is hard to believe that the season is already coming to a close! It feels like we just got here and got the operation up and running. Now, we will spend the next several days cleaning up camp, cleaning out the arch, and preparing for another great season of drilling next year.
Most of our crew left camp today. They all headed back to McMurdo Station and are preparing to catch a flight off of the continent. The rest of us will follow in a few days. Until then, we will be busy getting all of the cargo ready for next year. All of the items that we don't want frozen will fly back to McMurdo Station and will be stored until next year. Everything else will live in the drilling arch or will be stored in cargo lines on winter berms. Winter berms are raised snow platforms that will prevent all of the goods from being buried by snow during the winter. This will hopefully allow us to get started right away next year!
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