HOMININ SITES AND PALEOLAKES DRILLING PROJECTThe Chew Bahir team reached the ultimate finish line for this project, having drilled to a final depth of 278.58 mbs for hole 2A and 266.38 mbs for the duplicate core from hole 2B...
After a highly productive 24hrs collecting almost 90m of core the drilling rig was hit with a broken hydraulic line...
Progress continues at the Chew Bahir Site...
A good day at the Chew Bahir drilling site...
Slow but steady progress at site 2B...
The team has started drilling the twinned hole a few meters away from the first site and were down to 30 meters...
Drilling has stopped at the current site at 281m with 87% recovery...
HSPDP-CHB14-2A is now the deepest of the HSPDP campaign!...
Drilling slowed considerably on the 14th-15th...
The Chew Bahir crew is still powering through at the first site, currently down to ~210m...
Things improved lithologically...
Drilling is currently at 65m, but has hit a lot of sand...
After dealing with some logistical challenges (par for the course), drilling commenced...
Drilling is about to get underway at Chew Bahir!...
And that's a wrap for the Magadi site!
Just before the shift change last night we hit the basement trachyte in hole 2A, finishing up at ~197.5 meters below surface...
Slow but steady progress at Magadi...
Started drilling today at Site 2...
Today the drillers are preparing Site 2 to start coring tomorrow morning...
On the 27th, right at the day shift to night shift change the drilling hit trachyte volcanic rocks, the basement rocks for the L. Magadi basin...
Today we finished putting in the new casing and getting the drill rod back down to near our maximum drilling depth of 125m...
June 26, 2014 The last 2 days have been pretty trying for the drill and science teams...
We are down to ~114m in the second hole about 2m away from our original one...
We've been down for 2 days now...
We were down all day waiting for a part to be machined...
On the 17th the broken sub adaptor was taken to the mine machine shop for repair, but because of meetings related to the imminent mine layoffs the repair had to ultimately be done on site...
After a very productive first day of drilling things slowed down...
Yesterday was the first day of drilling at Magadi...
Magadi science team is assembled in Nairobi...
The Chew Bahir team has reached a drilling depth of 41.50 m...
After waiting for a spare part for a few days, the Chew Bahir team is now at 41m depth in hole 1...
As of March 21 with three first successful coring days the CB team reached a sub bottom depth of 26m...
Chew Bahir has begun drilling the first of two 50m test holes...
Afar drilling campaign complete...
At 230m depth the #3 basalt(65m thick) and dark mudstones has been reached...
Shortly after hitting basalt #3 we encountered too much torque to continue drilling as planned...
At the end of the PM shift, current depth is 167 meters...
The Weranso (Northern Awash) drilling is at about 114 meters depth...
After moving the gear to the Ledi site (~13km west of Osi Isi)
Apparently third time is not a charm...
Due to a series of equipment complications, we had to abandon the 2nd hole...
At 185 meters...
The N. Awash drilling team has made it to 152 m below the surface...
Drilling has commenced...
The team arrived at the N. Awash site and have set up camp...
Today's main task was to load the drilling equipment and materials along with other camp gear onto the Geosearch vehicle...
The last members of the first wave of the science team arrived in Addis this evening...
Work is underway in Addis Ababa...
W. Turkana DPI log summaries, June 20- July 6, 2013 July 8, 2013
Yesterday we tried getting the HQ back down to 215m, but were stopped at about 200 meters (5 rods short)...
Some good news...
The drilling team has been having problems advancing the last 2 days because of a combination of very high torque on the drill rods...
With the casing needing recementing it has been a slow two days, but as of this morning Kenya time we were making headway again...
After a day and a half of slow progress, tripping pipe and casing we are back in business drilling!...
Day 3 of drilling...
Day 2 of drilling...
Day 1 was a slow set up....
Arrived on site and began tripping rods back to bottom...
Started the day at 204.85 and had to core 0.4m to allow access for HW casing...
With one vehicle broken down in Nairobi and one broken down at the bottom of the hill we took a taxi to the bottom of the hill and then drove the Land Cruiser that was at the top of the hill to the site...
Still on a shortened drilling day with Mike arriving back to the drill site in Baringo at 2pm...
Started coring at 119.40m, with Mike in Nairobi getting his pins taken out of his leg today we are still on one extended drilling shift with both DPI crews working together while Mike is gone...
After night shift advanced the casing we are now getting about 90% returns...
Breakfast at 6:30 then all members drive to site for a single 12 hour shift with both day and night shifts working together to get everyone up to speed and trained...
Leave Norfolk Towers at 8am (Anders, Beau and Rich) and take taxi to NOCK yard...
After breakfast at Baringo Mike picked up Beau and I, then headed to Nairobi so we could receive the containers that afternoon...
Arrived on site with DPI already starting to dig out the circulation pits...
Set up rig...
Mobilization. Drive from Marigat town to site...
Met Mike Scarpelini with DPI after breakfast and started driving to Baringo...
Beau called Joseph with Beacon Movers to get update on when containers would arrive in Nairobi...