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Victoria University Antarctic Research Expedition Science and Logistics Reports 2000-01: VUWAE 45

5) FIELD PREPARATIONS

5) FIELD PREPARATIONS

  1. The K047A primary objective supported by Antarctica NZ was to carry out a program of shallow coring as proposed by Dr Warren Dickinson (VUW) with Webster Drilling providing drilling services in conjunction with VUW. In addition Webster Drilling were contracted by Raytheon Polar Services Company to carry out coring for an environmental remediation program at Lake Vida (DVDP bore hole #6). VUW considered this arrangement to be advantageous to the science program and supported it because it allowed the costs of drilling equipment development and mobilisation to be shared between two programs and also reduce helicopter requirements in Antarctica.

    During the planning phases prior to deployment to Antarctica we attempted to keep Antarctica NZ informed of the Raytheon contract developments and these were time tabled into the K047A schedule by Peter Cleary. The Lake Vida work, planned to be carried out first was to be supported in the field by the US program. However K047A cargo and personnel were manifested to Scott Base by the New Zealand Program where preparations were made for both US and NZ parts of the field program. During this period it became apparent that a few items of our Antarctica page break NZ equipment requests were not considered to be available for the US part of the program, these were solved simply but the impression remained that official communication and planning between the NZ and US at the program level could have been improved and these ramifications made clear to VUW.

    The equipment made available to K047A from Scott Base was in good condition and performed well in the field. The generator service kit provided is a significant step forward. The idea of a complete field friendly kit with built in drip tray served us well and was used for other motorised equipment as well. We hope to use the same idea for field servicing of small drilling equipment in the future. The only significant concern when at Allan hills was that we mislaid the soft Polar Haven floor (12'×8') in the Marble Pt. equipment cache. Our field equipment had been taken by sea ice surface transport to Marble Pt. and the floor had been stored with a different NZ science event's equipment in another part of the equipment cache. We found the Polar Haven tent to be significantly colder without the floor at Allan Hills. The floor was later recovered and used at Table Mountain. A lesser concern was the absence of guy ropes on some of the newest foldable Polar Tents. Additional guy ropes were provided on a resupply but were also mislaid for a few hours in the excitement of helicopter operations. The use of coloured packing slip type documentation in mail bags accompanying cargo originating from Scott Base would help field parties keep track of re supplies. A similar coloured form could be used by parties returning equipment and samples to Scott Base. This becomes even more important when field groups are large and several events may be working together. Testing equipment at Scott Base, note on preparing hydrocarbon contaminated cores.

    Field training required for Chris Hosie, Glen Kingan and Wayne Pollard was carried out on their arrival at Scott Base for the move to Allan Hills.

  2. We were delayed 2-3 days from the scheduled put in at Lake Vida due to weather and consequent helo backup. This extra time was well used in drill testing and we drilled at a possible fuel contaminated site at Scott Base to test the practicality of drilling and core recovery in volcanic rocks for environmental tests. Notes on these tests are appended to this report.