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Reconstructing the Past Climate of Central Alaska

Hey Seth,

It's Thomas here....PolarTREC Teacher Ken's son.

I have a question or two.....what do you do with the 200+ meter drill hole? Do you just leave it there? Does it matter that you have created a permanent hole in the glacier down to bedrock?

Thanks for taking care of my dad....believe it or not we did miss him tons :)

Thomas

Sun, 06/09/2013 - 12:54

Ken Williams

Hey Thomas... how ya doing buddy!Hope the summer is going well for you! Cool questions.
We are actually covering the bore hole with plywood and a stake so we can find it next year because we are going to try to do some deformation studies on the borehole next year. i.e. ice flows down hill, but it flows faster at the surface then at the bed because it is basically frozen to the bed. SO, the hole should TILT. We want to know how much it tilts which can give us some info about the flow "rheology" of the ice and the ice-bed boundary conditions. Have your dad look up "rheology" with you.
We also dig snow pits and drill the shallow cores but aren't too worried about those making a big dent in the glacier surface. Actually after the last snow storm, three of the four pits we dug are already re-filled in with snow!
Hope you guys are well! I'm glad we got your dad home in good shape. We all had a great time!
Seth