There are many approaches to designing a geophone network on a glacier, but one of the most important controls on data quality is coupling: the better the contact between the ice and the geophone, the higher the quality of the seismograms recorded. However, good coupling usually comes at a price- in this case, the ultimate[…]
I’m excited to be joining the RESPONDER team at Store Glacier next week – I’m Mike Prior-Jones from Cardiff University, and together with my PI Liz Bagshaw, I’ve been developing Cryoegg, a wireless subglacial probe. The plan is to put Cryoegg down a borehole to the bed of the glacier, where it can measure the[…]
The first scientific paper resulting from the UAV work package of RESPONDER has been published in The Cryosphere. Led by PhD student Tom Chudley, the paper described how we use carrier-phase GPS and UAVs to produce high-quality 3D models of the Greenland Ice Sheet, without requiring ground control points (GCPs), a common requirement in traditional UAV[…]
When hooked up to a suitable analyser, fibre-optic cables, much like those used for superfast broadband, can function as very long, very bendy thermometers or strain gauges, which record data at all points along their length. This incredible effect has been exploited for over a decade by oil companies, keen to monitor the temperature throughout[…]
Conversations on the ice sheet took on a sort of cyclical quality. If you’re with the same seven people for an entire month, with very little external stimulus, it’s fairly easy to run out of things to say. One strategy to cope with this was reeling out topics to exhaustion, for example discussing blue storage[…]
This year, for the summer 2018 field season, Tom returned to Store Glacier with new and improved UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or ‘drones’). These new units had larger lithium-ion batteries that provided a longer flight time allowing us to cover a larger area, as well as a slightly improved carrier-phase GPS setup, recording the UAV[…]
When I visited a glacier for the first time, I was amazed at how much noise it made. From little creaking noises to ominously deep booms, a day on the glacier is never quiet. To a seismologist, this cacophony is a great source of scientific data- by deploying geophones both on top of and inside[…]
Weather conditions remain testy, but Coen, Rickard, Adrian and TJ are back on the job! Their biggest challenge is a strong, persistent flow of air from the interior of the ice sheet. These winds occur when air comes in contact with a cold surface cooled by radiation. The team is reporting especially strong winds early in[…]
The weather on Store Glacier has so far not been great. Gale force winds and exposure make progress slow, and sometimes the team just has to ride it out. Today’s update by satellite phone is: “Hello – we are riding out another storm, but mood is good. Plenty of food. Catch’g up on sleep” As[…]
A new season of fieldwork is underway. A team of four has set out to survey the two selected areas for subglacial access drilling on Store Glacier. The team consists of Coen Hofstede, Rickard Pettersson, Adrian McCallum, Tun Jan “TJ” Young. The team is working in groups of two, with Coen and Adrian responsible for collecting[…]