We want to research our polygon with sensors in two different locations for a period of several years and do not want to destroy the surface of the tundra during our work.

Ice, photo: Max Heikenfeld, Alfred Wegener Institute

That means, like few weeks ago, that we need to install plenty of boards to make a reasonable boardwalk and the required workspace. In the center of the polygon the water level was also just above the surface when we started, so that we had to start earlier and pump large amounts of water from the area. So during our work the hum of the pump accompanied us almost continuously, to prevent our hole to become completely filled with water again.

The top layer of the soil was cut out fairly accurately with a spade and laid on a plastic sheet in order to be able to fill the entire hole back to the original as soon as possible. After that the more relaxed part of the work came, which though ended rather abruptly when we reached the bottom of the current thawing at just 30 centimeters. The spade struck on concrete solid frozen ground, which clearly had to be resorted by using harsher means: yellow gasoline powered Pico hammer drill.

Constructing the measuring station, photo: Max Heikenfeld, Alfred Wegener Institute

In the beginning, it is quite exciting to work with the drill. The chunks of frozen soil, which you can break out with it, are namely quite large. But after some time the work gets hard on the hands and arms. Not to mention the noise and fumes. First, the drill whirls so rapidly that the tundra winds of the ground, but as soon as the hole is so deep, that the drill becomes "exhausted" on the soil surface, the acrid stench will be somewhat uncomfortable. I was born in the industrial area of Ruhr and thought to myself that it was a pretty good thing I was not born hundred years ago, because back then the colliery kept going seven days a week.

By constantly fighting against the invading water, which was removed by a pump or the good old bucket, we came to about eighty centimeters wide ice lens that no one would have expected to find there. A clear ice spreading in the ground.

Permafrost measuring station. Photo: Max Heikenfeld, Alfred-Wegener-Institut

All this took place under the eyes of a television crew of the Geman RBB, which will make a documentary film about the work on Samoylov and Muostakh in the coming winter. We are all already looking forward to the probably pretty weird feeling to see you working in television. Luckily the crew was not there when we had at the end of the two days fill the holes with the carefully piled soil again. A researcher, who is in a pit filled to the knees with brown mush, represents certainly anything but an elegant image.