The Greenland glacial board. Base NGRIP

Base NGRIP - seasonal; starts to work in the beginning-middle of May when air temperature raises to-30°C, and it is occluded in the middle of August when because of a gale weather becomes non-flying.

The mid-annual temperature in this point-32°C and all year long keeps below zero. However, in serene July days air temperature can get warm to value which physicists designate 0°C.

Low temperature not the most important misfortune. Here, as well as in all mountain areas, people from an oxygen lack suffer mountain illness - a hypoxia. Low atmospheric pressure (500 mm hg instead of habitual 760) in the first days of stay at station makes a sick, vomiting, nasal bleedings. Then the organism gets used, but the box is powerful 20 kg ten-minute volleyball warm-up - 3 set match seems to two of one pood, and.

Here and base NGRIP. Perfectly rolled three-kilometre take-off - a landing strip, and in 250-300 m from it the settlement from dome-shaped tents is had. Main, with a wooden skeleton, diameter about 11 and height 7 m, it is divided into two levels. Below - kitchen, table, per capita, a toilet, a lavatory; above - some computer stations for overall using, a fax, office of the chief of station and five double deck beds.

Not far from the main some more tents rise: premises on 10 persons; a workshop with a workbench, turning and drilling machine tools; "church" Lucht looking like to the church head, a depot-refrigerator collected by mechanic Peter Lucht. Hardly further garage and some other premises. The dome-shaped form of tents - is not casual, she allows to avoid strong drifts during winter time. But nevertheless the beginning of each season begins with terrain clearing.

At station 41 polar explorer, customary norm - 32 persons can take places. In 1999 and 2000 at station worked on the average till 28-30 the person: the chief of station, drill men (6-7), the mechanic, the cook, helpers of the chief of station (4), packers of a core sample (3), bunch of research of physical properties of ice (3), bunches isotope (3) and chemical (5-6) analysises. A national compound such: Danes (6-8), Germans (5-6), Swisses (3), Icelanders (3-4), Frenchmen (2), Japanese (3) and on one polar explorer from Belgium, Sweden, the USA, Russia. Official, and also informal tongue of the project - English (on it daily, weekly and seasonal reports are compounded, business correspondence and radio negotiations is conducted).

Except surface constructions base NGRIP includes a huge complex underground or, more precisely, - nival constructions; a chisel premise in the form of a fosse in the dimensions 23x5x5 м3, the daylight area blocked at level plywood boards; a core storage, research laboratory - too a huge fosse. All of them are bridged by passes and have only one general exit (by the way, in failure of fire-prevention safety!).

In a field season of 1999 drilling went in two gangs, in the third - night - the equipment was handled, and the well was cleaned of slime by means of the special filter. By the season end depth of 1751.47 m has been reached at average sinking of 30.1 m/days (it is the highest indicator of deep drilling of wells in ices). But in a season of 2000, despite round-the-clock drilling, on depth over 2500 m speed has decreased to 20.3 m/days because of sharp change of rheological properties of ice (first of all as a result of increase of its temperature).

The end of a field season differed the special dramatic character. On depth the shell has got stuck of 2932 m on borehole bottom. From a surface in it 160 l of technical ethylene glycol have been filled in, but it has not given results. As it was found out later, in process of lowering on depth it was thinned with water. Then pure ethylene glycol have refrigerated in the form of small washers (freezing temperature-12.6°C) and have lowered in well, the temperature in which smoothly raised with-32°C on a surface to-8°C on working face. After a drop the cable tension has slacked only 6 kg of this refrigerated reagent, and the shell has been safely extracted on a surface.

But on it "adventures" of 2000 have not terminated. To continue drilling, it was necessary to extract ethylene glycol from well as it has turned to pasty mass and stuck to a shell surface. For this purpose used a special tube - a bailer, but also that has got stuck in well. Again it was necessary to throw the refrigerated ethylene glycol in well and in some days the bailer managed to be lifted upward.

In a new season which has begun in May, 2001, it is necessary to clean well of ethylene glycol and to continue drilling to subglacial rocks. According to radar researches, to them remains only 150 m.

But these malfunctions with drilling, and that layers of the warm season which waited on depths about 2800 m, and have not appeared as power of annual layers has appeared more settlement were the most unexpected moment in operation NGRIP at all. It turns out, that ice of that season is under a bed of a glacial integument that cannot be. Probably, in those days here a glacier was not in general, and the glaciation represented not a glacial board as considered earlier, and bunch of glacial domes. To specify it the further researches will allow.