Dr. Jérôme CHAPPELLAZ - Some of my pictures taken during scientific field expeditions

Some of my pictures taken during scientific field expeditions

The scientific traverse stopped somewhere between Vostok and Concordia

Contrast with an old Russian traverse vehicle Kharkovchanka

Vostok Station burried under snow

The Vostok treasury : ice cores from the 5G2 drilling

The traverse in the middle of megadunes East of Vostok

Snow pit digging down to 3 meters of depth

Driving on a frozen ocean

I work out with the main polar tool : a snow shovel, also called "D1"

Manu Lemeur with his snow radar on the Challenger, under midnight sun light

Stuck in too soft snow, surrounded by white-out

The traverse team on the way back to Concordia, at Point Barnola

Drilling setup at Point Barnola

The firn air pumping system and the SARA laser spectrometer inside the science caravan

The firn air bladder, with the "Point Barnola" camp in background

The plate in honor of our late colleague, Jean-Marc Barnola

The camp and the drill setup at Point Barnola

Olivier Alemany testing new drill head cutters

15 km to go and we get to Concordia Station (which shows up on the horizon) !

We know how to behave gentlemanly with women at Concordia

Snow dogs over Concordia

Vostok-Concordia traverse, Antarctica

December 2011 - February 2012

Location : ground traverse between Vostok and Concordia Stations, Antarctica ; between 78°28'S - 106°48'E, altitude 3460 m and 75°06'S - 123°20'E, altitude 3230 m

Mean annual temperature : entre -53 et -56°C

Team members 2011-2012 : Olivier Alemany (LGGE, Fr.), Jérôme Chappellaz (LGGE, Fr.), David Colin (IPEV, Fr.), Alexandre Leluc (IPEV, Fr.), Emmanuel Lemeur (LGGE, Fr.), Martin Schneebeli (SLF, CH), Anthony Vende (IPEV, Fr.). The traverse on its way into Vostok from Concordia involved 8 members.

Activities : the traverse, a First in this sector of Antarctica, aimed at documenting the spatial and temporal variability of snow accumulation and of geochemical parameters of the snow, as well as at performing an intermediate drilling at a site with lower accumulation rate than at Concordia Station.

My work in the field : coordinator of the IPEV project EXPLORE articulated with the VANISH project for this traverse, I conducted the firn air sampling at the drilling site called Point Barnola, and I used during that time a SARA laser spectrometer.