Wednesday November 29, the temperature stays stable (around -11°C), but the wind speed increases (33km/h). With the sledge attached to the skidoo we left the station around 3:00 pm for our first sampling site (4km away from the station – in the valley along the Utsteinen ridge). The visibility was still very good, but the wind blew strongly at the ground and produced a wavy snow blanket. Firstly, the snow was collected at the site, next to the pole of the first passive sampler installed more than 4 years ago. Then, the new four poles were installed, two are equipped with a new passive sampler and a Bergenhof sampler for the mineralogy and trace element analyses and two are dedicated to the volatiles and organic molecule analyses. Everything went well, the filter (that has collected two years of dust deposition) has been replaced by a new one (quite tricky operation with the wind – I had to work inside a trunk to move that tinny filter of 5cm wide, and 0.1mm thick to a petri box. We went back at the station at 8:00pm extremely happy!!
From Nadine Mattielli & Christophe Walgraeve
