Work ( & AT329 field work)

There have been some complains about me never writing anything about work - just about all the fun we have up here, so I have decided to do something about that.

I share my office with Olli-Pekka (see blog about Monday-lunchbreak), and we are probably equally energetic when it comes to sharing weired Finnish dance videos (like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPnGPIMUnus Watch it at least once as it gets increasingly worse...) and pictures. Besides from that we are still convinced about the fact that there is some kind of sleeping gas in our office...

Olli at work

So much for our everyday work life - over to one of the courses I am taking for the moment: AT329, also called "Cold region field investigation" or: How to drill 6m deep holes in the permafrost while building Igloo's and freezing (more about that in just a minute...)

Åsmund is looking forward to the first day of fieldwork...

Field Work day #1

We took two belt wagons and drove first out to the pingo in Adventdalen to kill some time since the drilling equipment was not ready before we went to the site of the next days field work: the old Auroral station.

Belt wagon fun in Adventdalen...

Åsmund and I with our ride.

As we arrived at the station we got informed of the day's program: Drilling a 6m deep hole in the permafrost. In order to do so we had to remove the snow from an area of 5x6 m first

Students at work

(still) happy at field work

Then they brought in the beast,

showed us the different types of drills you can use on permafrost

and told us they had to do some preparations for about 30min before drilling. Since it was really windy Åsmund and I decided to invade the nearby old Auroral station and warm up.

We did not exactly miss anything when we got back - nothing had happened yet.

The site

Some of the students had started to try and protect themselves against the wind - you don't exactly get warm from standing around and watching others work.

Others had higher ambitions and started to build and Igloo

Finally our teachers started drilling, but still for us there was nothing to do except standing around...

The Igloo got at least ready,

and another form of keeping warm after 3 hours was playing snow rugby

Meanwhile, the teachers still had great fun drilling their way through the permafrost...

And the Igloo was improved

By the time it started to get dark we had managed to build a wind protection wall, an Igloo, play several rounds of snow rugby and drill a 6m hole. Still, despite all the action, we were all freezing cold.

Field Work day #2

When we arrived on Tuesday morning, our Igloo had survived the harsh arctic night conditions - so we are now formally qualified Igloo builders...

We needed to shovel away some of the snow that had blown over our hole during the night, but except from that everything was just as the day before: We were to drill another hole. Well, not we, but we watched.

The second day of field work was even more windy than the first one

but at least we got to enjoy the beauty of an arctic sunrise and got fresh air :D



while others were still drilling (you know, it takes a while to drill the perfect hole...)


Some students were getting really cold and just simply did not want to move anymore

so we decided to extend our Igloo (we did not have anything else to do, did I mention that?)

I decided I needed to do something to stay warm

so I started to take pictures of the old northern light station in front of Hjortfjellet

and came up with even weirder ways of keeping warm: gymnastics. For all of you who know how versed I am in gymnastics - this is a delight. But hey, try it yourself with all the clothes and on snow...

Our Igloo was improved and now equipped with a tank gun

and by the end of the field work we even got artistic. You can only look at a drilling machine for so long...

Finally, a new hole had been successfully drilled, and it was time to say goodbye to our Igloo and snow-art for the day

Field work day #3

And for an update: Åsmund just returned from the third day of drilling holes (which I skipped, I just couldn't be asked to waste even more time on watching other people drill). Apparently, the Igloo snow today was much better that yesterday, so our Igloo got a bigger annex, and they got to hold the steering spark of the drill for 10 seconds... I guess I really missed out there...

We all agreed that field work is important, but 3 days of drilling holes (or rather 3 days of watching other people drill) might be a slight overkill... I guess we all got the point after the first hole or even the first hour. And we're not even gonna do anything with the holes or what we've extracted from them.