Where are we going?

This Summer (May 2018) we are heading out to Greenland to set up the SIIOS above a subsurface lake that drains and refills with glacial melt-water over the course of the year. Europa is thought to have sub-surface lakes too, making this a great ‘analog’ site!  We want to record the passive seismic signals made by the water movements into and out of the lake, but we don’t want to register the foot-falls of other research groups or lost tourists. Hehe.  So, the field site is in the middle of nowhere – more than an hour helicopter ride away from Thule Airbase!  

We’ll be setting up at ~ 78°00’04.96”N 68°30’55.00”W, in temperatures of about -6°C/~20°F. The temperatures will be made even less enjoyable by wind gusts of up to 100mph! Once we are dropped off by the helicopter we’ll be alone with the cold, the wind, crevasses and polar bears!  We’ll be prepping very, very carefully for all of these. More on that soon…