Coring Operations

Position
87.56 N 137.16E

Weather and ice conditions
Temp -6 C , wind 8-12 m/s S. Mostly overcast. Ice coverage 9-10/10

Report 16
Mission completed

The last core was on deck Sunday at 1400. After some maintenance work on the vessels and refueling of Vidar Viking from Oden, we are now spending the remaining few hours in the area conducting a seismic survey over the coring site before we begin the transit home on Monday night.

There have been many different components contributing to the achievements of the expedition and we would like to report about some of them in the web reports to follow.

Here is the first – about ACEX communication:
Given the difficult and remote environment of the high Arctic, the number of participants in ACEX, and the complexity of operations, our success depends heavily on excellent communication. Per Frejvall, the communications and information technology (IT) manager, has organized an impressive infrastructure. The IT system consists of servers, protected by antiviral software, that handle general information, email, and scientific data. Each scientist has been allocated an email account, accessible via the internal web, and space on the server for expedition data.

The network to the servers is wireless, across all vessels in the fleet. As such, a user on the Vidar Viking can access email (at a rate of 11 MB/s) that’s on the Oden, even when she’s up to 4 nautical miles away. The link to the Sovetskiy Soyuz works up to 20 miles away, but at a reduced speed of 10 kb/s. Email is distributed constantly among ACEX participants, and smaller ones (less than 100kb of text and no attachments) are sent to (and retrieved from) the outside world generally twice a day, via Iridium phones that connect to satellites orbiting above. Price and bandwidth prevent us from accessing the world wide web, but over 3000 email messages have been received and over 2000 have been sent out.

With regard to instant communication via telephone, a true first has occurred. Ericsson, through their “Ericsson Response” program, has generously contributed a complete GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) environment and a technical expert, Ingemar Pomlin, to run it. This means that a local cell phone network has been set up enabling participants to use individually issued phones (Ericsson R250 rough phones) to communicate with each other, indoors and out, on all vessels and helicopters, as long as they are within a 35 km distance from the base station, located on Oden. The system is so robust and capable, that theoretically all of us could be using the phones at same time. Heavens forbid! This system generally eliminates the need for other, older forms of communication that use VHF, UHF, and SAT phones.

These modes of communications have significantly raised the level of service provided on such expeditions, and have thus significantly improved the efficiency and effectiveness of the operation. “Tack så mycket,” to Per, Ingemar, and their sponsors.

Fleet position
87.52 N, 136.05 E

Weather and ice conditions
Temp -6.4 C, wind 4-6 m/s N. Overcast with some snowfall. Ice coverage 8-10/10.

Web report 15
Bedrock

Analysis of rock samples recovered from the bottom of the hole indicates that we have reached "basement," which is the continental rock atop which the marine sequence we've been coring was deposited. Basal sandstone and mudstone were retrieved from 410 m below the seafloor. They contain agglutinated benthic foraminfera and dinoflagellate cysts that indicate a Late Cretaceous age of roughly 80 million years. These sediments, which directly underlie shallow-water marine deposits of approximately 56 million years old, indicate a near-shore environment.

A new hole, 50 metres from the old one, is now being cored, to fill some of the gaps in the sedimentary sequence that were missed previously. Logging will then be attempted again, and this will be followed by piston coring in yet another hole, to recover high-quality cores in the uppermost portion of the sequence. On Sunday, preparations for the journey back home will begin.

The direction of ice drift has shifted with weak winds. Vidar Viking has had to rotate 360°, but is still keeping position! To our good fortune, the big floes are continuing to avoid our operational area.

Position
87.54 N, 138.30E

Weather and ice conditions
Temp -5 C, wind 4-7 m/s N, clear sky. Old ice with a few floes of multi-year ice. Ice coverage 8-10/10.

Report 14
Getting ready to log

Today is the official "birthday" for ice that formed during the previous winter, and survived until now.

An exciting discovery was made this morning when micropalaeontologists were examining a new batch of core samples collected the previous night from about 390 m below the seafloor. Within the high-quality sedimentary record experts in fossil micro organisms discovered the Palaeocene/Eocene boundary that has an age of approximately 55 million years. This time period is characterized by extreme warmth, great and abrupt changes in global biogeochemistry, and by extinctions of species. This will be something that the scientists now at sea and others who are yet to take direct part in the work, will look into in November when everyone meets up to look at the core at the University of Bremen for the "science party."

Coring has continued to a depth of 428 m. There are that the borehole could now be close to the base of the flat lying sediments. This change can be see in some of the "seismic section" collected by previous expeditions ( many of which also used the Oden) that are seen on top of Lomonosov ridge.

This could mean dealing with rocks that are harder than those we have drilled so far and require changes in the tools used. Click here to read more about the different coring tools that can be used for scientific borehole by looking at the details of the very similar tools used by the JOIDES Resolution for other IODP drilling projects.

We have now decided to start "logging," which means running a wire-deployed tool down the hole to measure geophysical properties such as density, electrical conductivity, and porosity. This is being undretaken by engineers from Schlumberger overseen by scientists from the University of Leicester. Continuous logging data will be collected through the sediment layers which we have cored. More details on what logging involves, what the tools measure and what the scientists can use the data to find out can be found here.

The ice drift still remains cooperative, and we have now been able to keep the coring ship in position (within a 20 m radius) for more than 125 hours, a world record in its own right!

Position
87.54 N, 138.30 E

Weather and ice conditions
Temp -3 C , wind 7-10 m/s N. Cloudy and light snowfall at times. One-year old ice with a few floes of multi-year ice, ice coverage 8-10/10.

Report 13
Fresh to salty?

After making good progress down to 341 m (new record!) we have now encountered soft mudstone, and advancement has been only 10 meters during the last 12 hours. We hope to hit harder material again soon. The goal is to reach the bedrock some 100 m below the present depth.

Meanwhile, the scientists in the laboratories are busy investigating the material recovered so far. One major issue is the dating. There are signs that we reached at least 50 million years back in time. Spores and a fresh-water ferns (Azolla, commonly known as duckweed) have been found, suggesting a transition from a large body of water capped with fresh water, to one that was saltier and closer to a normal marine environment in earliest Middle Eocene (49 million years ago).

The scientists have access only to small samples from the cores. Thorough investigations will be made when the cores are opened in Bremen, Germany later this year. Then, many of these preliminary hypotheses will be tested more carefully.

The ice situation remains good. The sun is lower on the horizon every day, and we can feel that winter is slowly arriving.

Position
87.52 N, 136.14 E

Weather and ice conditions
Temp -2.5 C , wind 6-9 m/s NW,
Partly overcast, some snow flurries. A mixture of one-year old ice and multi-year ice, few ridges. Ice coverage 8-9/10.

Report 12
Washing down

To provide a long time interval for sustained coring operations, the fleet relocated on Saturday, by about 10 nm, to a site within an area that is predicted to have favorable ice conditions for at least 50 hours. The day was wintry, with a centimeter or so of snow accumulation, lower temperatures, and stronger winds. Approximately 100 radar reflectors (metal-coated devices that look like kites or buoys) were deployed on ice flows in the hope that they will appear in the images that will be taken this evening by the radar satellite passing over us, high in the sky. The reflectors provide a baseline fix on position that can be used to track ice movement. Once the reflectors are located in the image, we return to them at later times, via helicopter, and re-log their position via GPS. This information can then be used to track the movement of the ice relative to the snap-shot in time that was provided by the radar image.

Today, coring operations are in full swing again. A few cores were taken in the upper 30 m and now the hole is being deepened to 210 m before additional cores are recovered. The ultimate target is the "basement" which is the hard rock, possibly of continental origin, upon which the marine sediments have been deposited. The age of the basement is unknown.

Deepening the hole, without recovering cores, is called "washing." As the pipe is lowered into the hole, the bit on the end of the pipe cuts through the sediment. A mixture of water and drilling mud is pumped down from the ship, through the pipe and into the hole. The water and mud flush, or "wash," the drilled sediment out of the hole.

Patiently waiting for more cores.

Position
87.54 N, 138.30 E

Weather and ice conditions
Temp -0.5 C , wind 6-10 m/s N, overcast. Ice coverage 8-9/10

Report 11
New position

Coring at the new site started at midnight but unfortunately ended a few hours later after the third core was fired into the seafloor. The wire line that retrieves the piston core broke away from the core, which is apparently stuck in the bottom of the pipe. Two high-quality cores piston cores (10 m total) were retrieved, and a third may remain intact in the core barrel. The pipe is being disassembled, and tonight we will assess the problem when the core barrel returns to the rig floor.

While transiting to this site, the scientists took advantage of the available time and favourable ice conditions by conducting a geophysical seismic survey of the sediments and rocks beneath the seafloor. The survey provides data that show the layering of the materials, analogous to that revealed in road cuts. The survey data help the scientists interpret the core data, and they serve as the basis for selecting core sites on future expeditions.

The ice management team is conducting ice reconnaissance to find optimal coring locations. They have also assembled and set out on the ice a series of metal reflectors that will be photographed by a satellite passing overhead. The reflectors will show up clearly in the photo, unlike the vessels. The photo will be sent to the ship and used by the ice management team in their reconnaissance efforts.

We expect to renew coring operation tomorrow morning after a fortifying meal of pea soup and pancakes. Such good food helps the team maintain morale when operations are challenging, like now. Such is the conduct of science.

Fleet Position:
87.56 N, 138.48E

Weather and ice conditions:
Temp -0.3 C, wind 3-6 m/s E-SE, fog, very thick ice covering 9-10/10.

Report 10:
CHANGING LOCATION

After reaching 272 m below the seafloor, coring was interrupted late Monday night because of extremely difficult ice conditions, with multi-year ice floes that even Sovetskiy Soyuz could not break up enough for Vidar Viking to hold station any longer. After maintaining this location, and the borehole for 4 days, we have finally been forced to remove the core pipe and abandon the hole. For the time being, we are conducting ice reconnaissance missions in an effort to find a favourable site nearby so that we may start a new hole and resume coring operations.

One key element in the ice management is ice drift forecasting. GPS buoys are deployed by helicopters onto ice floes located "upstream" from the location of the coring vessel. The movement of the ice is measured continuously, transmitted back to the ship in real time to be used to forecast upcoming ice conditions. Forecasting is essential to make sure that when condition become so difficult that the Vidar Viking can no longer maintain position, there is sufficient lead-time for the crew to remove the drill pipe from the seafloor.

The scientists are busy analyzing samples from the recently recovered cores which could span the past 40 million years of Arctic history.

Yesterday, a plane from the Swedish Air Force arrived from Greenland and airdropped supplies and replacement parts. It was exciting to see such a large plane pass low between the ships.

Position:
87.55 N 139.17E

Weather and ice conditions:
Temp -1C, wind 5-8 m/s N, mostly overcast, patches of fog. Ice coverage 9-10/10

Report 9:
Celebrating the first 100 meters

At 2300 Friday night the coring team reached the 100-meter level. A major milestone to celebrate!

The next few hours were a tough struggle against heavy ice. The coring had to stop and the pipe was tripped to within 30 meters of the seafloor. VIDAR VIKING almost lost its position and risked breaking the pipe, but intense efforts by the two assisting icebreakers and a change of the ice drift saved the situation.

The coring has started again and the depth reached so far is 120 meters. The ice looks manageable for the next 12 hours but we have learned that the situation can change very rapidly.

Radar satellite image with typical tracks during a 24 hours period. The traces of the different vessel are marked in different colours. Note the traces of earlier tracks in the lower lefthand corner.

Position:
87.55 N 139.32 E

Weather and ice conditions:
Temp around zero degrees, wind 5 -8 m/s N, rain or snow at times, overcast. Ice coverage 9-10/10 with some open water and some big floes.

Report 8:
Core on deck

As of Friday morning, the first 60 meters of sediment beneath the seafloor have been cored with a recovery of 50 meters of material. It consists of clay with sparse microfossils. This is completely unique material for the scientists.

It is the first time an expedition has recovered anything more than the top few meters.

The coring has been continuous since Thursday afternoon.

We are making good progress!

Fleet Position:
87.55 N 139.32 E

Weather and ice conditions:
Temp -1 to -3 C, wind 5 -8 m/s N, cloudy, patches of fog and some snow fall Ice coverage 9-10/10 with some open water and some big floes.

Report 7:
CORING AGAIN

There is an unusually high concentration of old ice in the operational region, averaging 90% and up to 100% cover. This combined with ice pressure which has prevailed during the last two days, has challenged the operation. VIDAR VIKING had to change its position. The ice situation for the near future now looks promising. At the same time, some mechanical troubles with the rig have been fixed and the coring operations have started again.

The focus of ACEX is geoscience research. In addition to the scientific activities onboard two schoolteachers and an artist have been invited to take part in the expedition. Kathy Couchon, a middle school teacher from Narragansett, Rhode Island, USA, and Erik Zetterberg, a gymnasium (high school) teacher at Järsälla near Stockholm, Sweden. Hannes van der Fecht is a graduate student of photography from Bremen, Germany. He will be documenting the expedition and will create an art exhibition that will tour several countries this winter. The teachers are integrated members of the expedition and they take an active role in assisting the scientists in the laboratories as well as keeping their students informed about their experiences on an Arctic expedition. (see their reports linked to our web site www.iodp.de)

Fleet Position:
87.54 N 138.30 E

Weather and ice conditions:
Temp -0.5 C, wind 8-10 m/s N, low clouds, patches of fog with some clearings early in the morning. Ice coverage is
9-10/10.

Report 6:
Ice pressure

The first attempt to retrieve sediments using the piston core was unsuccessful due to mechanical problems. The bottom-hole assembly (BHA) detached from the drill string and was lost on the seafloor. The pipe was disassembled and redeployed with a new BHA. The drill string is now being lowered again to the seafloor. The water depth over the site is about 1225 m.

When ice floes are pushed together by winds, tides, or currents, pressure increases and ice ridges can form when the floes collide. No "open water" of any significance exists at our current location, and as such, breaking the ice and keeping large pieces away from VIDAR VIKING has been hard work for ODEN. Despite this, VIDAR VIKING has successfully maintained her position at
all times.

A polar bear was inspecting the coring site yesterday morning and approached the stationary VIKING. As he neared, the Captain sharply blew the horn and frightened off the curious bear.

 icebreaking.MOV

John Farrell (C) Integrated Ocean Drilling Program

Movie Clip showing SOVETSKIY SOYUZ breaking ice and measurement of ice thickness (movie requires Quicktime to be viewed. Click here to download.)

Fleet Position:
87.54 N 138.30 E

Weather and ice conditions:
Temp -0.5 C , wind 5-8 m/s N. Low clouds with patches of fog.
One-year old ice with a few floes of multi-year ice, ice coverage 9-10/10.

Report 5:
Coring operations started!!

At 1100 UTC Sunday the lowering of the core pipe into the water has started. In a few hours time we will reach the sea floor bottom at 1100 m water depth and the actual sediment coring can begin. The "Go ahead" was given by fleet manager Captain Anders Backmann after a 24- hour period of reconnaissance and evaluation of the ice situation. The ice is difficult but the ice drift is slow, less than 0.2 knots. ODEN and SOVETSKIY SOYUZ have been quite successful in crushing ice floes and VIDAR VIKING had done an excellent job of keeping position within a radius of less than 50 meters.