Licenced to drill

I am off to work on a glacial research site in Iceland, to investigate relationships between meltwater from the Virkisjokull glacier - which has retreated nearly 500 m in the last 15 years - and groundwater stored in the over 100 m thick sand and gravel pro-glacial outwash plain. Could groundwater help to replace essential meltwater sources that will be lost as glaciers in places like the Himalayas disappear in the next few decades? OK, Iceland is very different from low-latitude mountain glacial environments, but it's a whole lot easier - and cheaper - to do research there, and many of the hydrological processes are likely to be the same. It seems that few people have so far looked at groundwater in any glacial areas, so this work is set to be kind of new and, hopefully, maybe, even a little bit useful...

I'll be working with BGS colleagues and an Icelandic drilling company, and the plan is to drill about 10 boreholes, mostly less than 15 m deep (I say drill; I mean stand around telling the driller what to do); use the boreholes to test the aquifer; and install monitoring equipment that will give me an excuse to go back in 6 months time to see what's been happening. Fingers crossed everything is organised: the pallet of heavy equipment arrived in Reykjavik by ship last week; the borehole screen and casing arrived by plane last Friday, only a month late (although is still stuck in customs...); and I deserve a gold medal for how much I've manage to squeeze into two check-in bags, packed full of smaller & lighter bits of essential equipment, bedding, ice crampons, Marmite, and knitting. I have our letter of permission from the Icelandic Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture. My out of office email reply is turned on. I'm ready to go!