Testimonials
November 2016
Dear Kovacs,
I am a PhD student based in the UK and have recently been on fieldwork to the Swiss Alps, where I have been working on a glacier to investigate surface stream dynamics.
For this, both myself and my colleagues have been using your 1 m and 0.5 m ice augers to insert ablation stakes and fixed reference points into the glacier surface, and I wanted to thank you for making such a robust piece of equipment! After having left both augers on the glacier for a period of 2 weeks in between field trips, I returned to find that the rock near which I had placed them had experienced melting of the supporting ice, causing it to rotate and fall on top of the augers…after much chipping away at the ice underneath the augers, I am pleased to report that we managed to save both pieces of kit, and neither were damaged in any way!
Please find attached a very happy student about to use our recovered Kovacs auger!
Many thanks,
Jayne Kamintzis
PhD Candidate in Glaciology
Centre for Glaciology, Geography and Earth Sciences
Aberystwyth University
June 2016
We used the Kovacs coring system with 12 extension rods to manually recover firn & ice cores at around 2500 m in the accumulation basin for Helheim Glacier in April, 2016 – the whole system worked like a dream & we could recover, weigh, sample, bag & bottle 12+m of core in 10cm increments in a day. Our transect took us from the base of Mt Forrel out onto the ice sheet plateau proper… all lugged and logged manually. We couldn’t have done it without the Kovacs coring system – light weight yet robust, simple to use, built to take abuse – its an excellent piece of kit.
Alun Hubbard, Aberystwyth University
Feb 20, 2016
We have been able to use our ice drill and it has worked really well. It cuts through the ice easily and the hole is just the right size!
Dave & Amy Freeman, National Geographic Adventurers of the Year, 2014
Sept 9, 2015
“I’ve returned from Greenland and wanted to say how happy I was with the ice coring kit we bought from you. It did the job perfectly: it was easy to use and assemble, and drilled the holes quickly and easily. Even the cardboard box you sent it in was very useful, as we used it as our kitchen box. It’s great (and unfortunately too rare) to have excellent customer service and excellent product, so thank you very much.”
Dr. Rachel Carr, Newcastle University, United Kingdom
“We collected 112m of shallow firn cores during our 2014/2015 West Antarctic Ice Sheet traverse using the Kovacs Corer. It worked perfectly.”
Jefferson Cardia Simoes
– Scientific Director of the Polar & Climate Center at the Institute of Geosciences, Federal University at Rio do Sul (UFRGS)
– Director of the Brazilian National Institute for Cryospheric Sciences
– National delegate to the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research – SCAR
From Meredith Nation at the Australian Antarctic Division we hear that Mark Curran “had a successful brief coring campaign this 2012/2013 season with Kovacs’ gear gaining a 30m core and being the one who cut the core in the laboratory, I was very impressed with the core quality.” Krista S. wrote in the Australian Antarctic Division end of season Law Dome report that the Law Dome field team obtained several shallow cores and time allowed for one 30m core with the Kovacs MARK VI coring and SideWinder hoisting systems. We “did have a few teething problems”. . . . “an object lesson in the value of reading the manual properly, but once we got going it all went smoothly.”
“I had the opportunity to support a team drill rocky ice in Beacon Valley, in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica. We had four drills on hand to do the drilling. Of the three drills, the Kovacs drill was the only one capable of taking acceptable core. The PICO and SIPRE drills all produced hockey pucks. Congratulations! You have designed a great little drill! The Kovacs drill worked very well under very difficult drilling conditions.”
Jim Green
Mechanical Engineer Ice Coring and Drilling Systems
University of Wisconsin-Madison
I’m glad I got to meet both of you last summer at the IGS meeting! Your drill has really made a big difference in the ease and volume of field data I can collect. I drill into dirty debris covered ice and back in the days when I used a steam drill, the smallest bit of sand or rock in the hole would shut the drilling down completely. It’s still a challenge/impossible to drill when rocks fall in (of course) but the mechanical drill is much more forgiving when sand or small fragments fall in. And there isn’t the fear of running out of fuel! Additionally, for my work I can’t afford any sort of air support so we run all over the Alaska Range on foot and bike.
Thanks to you both for your contribution to the study of ice, I do hope our paths will cross again!
Sam Herreid, University of Alaska
“We are using a MARK II coring device for the drilling of glacier ice, as well as Aufeis (both river and lake ice), and especially for coring permafrost ice (often containing some sediment). We drill into the frozen ground even with Vladimir Putin, at that time Prime Minister of Russia. We were very satisfied about the result.”
Hanno Meyer, Alfred Wegener Institute
I want to tell you that your corer is a joy to use. With the electric drill on, the whole process of taking short ice cores has become a pleasure, and I am not only more efficient but also inspired to make more measurements. And the aesthetics of the machining and cleverness of the design fills me with satisfaction every time I open the box!
Best regards from snowy Svalbard.
Dr. Jack Kohler, Norwegian Polar Institute
“The equipment worked perfect and we are very happy with the results. Attached are a couples pictures in Arctic.”
Best wishes,
Antonio
This email just lets you know that our new purchased corer and Kyne SideWinder from you worked very well at Agassiz Ice Cap (82 degree North at minus 28 C). Operation was easier and smooth. Core quality was great. We reached 16.4 meters before our generator refused to work (very bad 2k). I also tried to operate by myself alone and found it could be operated by one single person with no problem (but just slower). Thanks a lot for making such a great system.
James Zheng
Senior Cold Regions Chemist, PhD
GSC-N, ESS, Natural Resources Canada
“Your drills worked great and we drilled holes down to 75 feet with no problem . I wished all our tools worked as good as yours. For your info I ran gas drill on benzene (16, 275 feet reported). I did not even have to adjust air or fuel mixture.”
Don Campbell , Foreman of the Noah Ark Search 2011 in Turkey
