9 July, 2001

Greetings from Sweden! I arrived yesterday by commercial airline in the town of Kiruna, located in northern Sweden. Twenty fours had passed from the time I had left Portland. From Kiruna I drove to a small village called Nikkaloukta where myself and a bunch of gear was flown by helicopter to the Tarfala Research Station. The Tarfala Research Station is located in the Kebnekaise, a mountainous region of Sweden where Storglaciaren is located. Storglaciaren is the name of the glacier where we will doing our research for the next month. Jet lag is hitting hard right now. With a 9 hour time difference, I feel like falling asleep at 3:00 in the afternoon, and I perk up at about 8:00 in the evening.

Today we hiked up to the glacier to determine where we will begin our work. It was about a 45 minute trek up a steep and rocky slope before we could safely step onto the glacier. There is quite a diverse group of people involved in this project. Dr. Bob Jacobel, who teaches Physics at St. Olaf college will be doing the ice radar work with two undergraduates from St. Olaf, Robert Engle and Peter Pearson. Dr. Peter Jansson from the University of Stockholm will be in charge of the drilling operation. Finally, Dr. Andrew Founatain from Portland State University (PSU) will be heading up the measurement of various borehole parameters. A prospective graduate student of PSU, Sara Frodin, and myself will be helping Andrew Fountain with the borehole investigations. These investigations will involve primarily the use of a borehole video camera to measure englacial conduit characteristics. In addition, pressure transducers will be used to monitor hydrolic pressure conditions in th! !

e boreholes.