(no subject)

Drilling is going well... finished in the muck of Site 1 yesterday, then moved into Haughton Crater itself (yay!) on to the breccia at Site 2 (actually a carbonate melt sheet, one of the most unusual exposures anywhere),

(If anyone wants samples of breccia or shatter cones, I'll try to accommodate reasonable requests.)

We couldn't take the Humvee into Inuit-owned land, so had to park it at the border and hand-carry our equipment uphill. Site 2 is well drained but windy. Our required Inuit adult supervision (Pauline) was ill in the evening, so we couldn't go back to the site.

Today... we began drilling and getting structural dynamic responses (frequencies and mode shapes for use in diagnostics).

And I was interviewed by CNN for a science and technology segment that will supposedly air next week. ;-)

more Scotch...

The main auger bearing has failed, after 2.2m. Ice lens. Being able to drill in 10m of massive sandstone means little compared to doing so in analog field conditions. Need better cuttings removal, quick bit changeout (so we could have put in a better ice bit instead of keeping the rock bit going, might have saved the bearing).

OTOH, we've found 8 fault modes, done all of the vibrational diagnostics tests, and gone 3 times further into frozen breccia than any previous drilling here, even those using commercial equipment.

Then again, I'm under deadline pressure on a proposal for Antarctic drilling tests in 2005-08... due tonight. Way behind in email, have barely looked at LJ. Some nice chats after midnight last night (waves at patgreene, geekchick (just like old times, with the webcam ;) and tenacious_snail), but I need to get more than 4 hours sleep...

However, I'm not freezing anymore... not just because of the Chivas 18-year or Oban, either. The first few days here, I shivered continually and ate voraciously. Both have been greatly reduced. And the sleet stopped today.