Testing BELISSIMA equipment in Switzerland

The scientific equipment that will be used for the 2008 BELISSIMA Antarctic field season was tested last October on Tsanfleuron Glacier, a small glacier located between Gstaad and Les Diablerets in Switzerland. Such test phase is particularly important within the framework of our expedition, since new types of equipment will be used. The main purpose of this Swiss trip was to test the ECLIPSE drill tower that one of our team members recently acquired. This drilling system is a modified version of the world-famous Hans-Tausen drill, designed some years ago at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. The ECLIPSE drill is manufactured in Canada and is intended for drilling dry holes, i.e. without lubrication liquid, to depths of up to 350m. Despite the design has been proven at several locations in the Arctic, the version we have at disposal had never really been tested on the ice.

The weather conditions we met on Tsanfleuron Glacier were actually worthy of polar regions, and were thus very convenient for our tests. And what had to occur occurred: after several hours of coring work, the drill control box short-circuited due to some heat dissipators that burned up. The drilling testing phase was over, but we got what we wanted: we found the problems in our equipment. It is always better when this sort of trouble happens close to civilization than far down Big South.

The drill is now back in Canada, where it is being fixed.
See you soon for an update on the control box.

Denis