what do you mean by 25 cm o fice - frozen gorund or frozen precipitate above the soil?

The weather here in Michigan just cannot seem to make up its mind. Mild early yesterday, then on the way home from school, about 20+ vehicles spun out in the ditches on the freeway due to icy conditions. While at work, some women decided to run the red light I was stopped at, got hit by another car, she spun and then she hit me. Never been in an accident at this job in the 4 years working it. Good thing everyone was fine; the fellas she tangled up with had a few choice words for her. Kids.....:)

We'll see what tonight's run will be like. More crappy weather, more crappy drivers.

sorry dmack, i was meaning frozen ground, 20 cm of ice above the soil would be a little bit of a different story :wink:

yeah i bet it will get cold rtx, its doing the same thing down here except we're getting flooded at the moment.

Here in Arkansas it was 78 one day last week, 25 the next, and then we had serious tornado damage on Tuesday. Thats not to mention the 65 mph winds we had two weeks ago that took down our storage shed in the back yard. But unless lightning strikes us, I guess fieldwork will be done. :|

There is no excuse to keep working if you have 25cm of frozen soil !! In many areas that would be then entire artifact bearing soil package. The potential for missing material is tremendous and many reviewers will not accept work done under those conditions if they are aware of it. I know of few projects that had to be completely redone when the conditions were better and no one was happy.

I think that it all depends on your winter methodology. I've worked on several winter projects in Canada and the northeast US and haven't really compromised archaeological methodology. The downside should only be cost and if the need for a timely completion trumps the cost then it is just a matter of pre-thawing the ground in advance of excavation. Then simply treat it as if it were summer (plus about 4 more layers of clothing).

yeah the only real major change was the difficulty in digging those units. we broke most of the ice up in the upper layers but it took a tremendous effort. went from about 24 holes to 4 on average. I guess hooray for pipelines; I don't mind working in those conditions if they are willing to pay me.