23 November, 1998

Monday, November 23rd, 1998

Hi! We're down to 548 meters and the drilling is scheduled to stop sometime this week. The downhole loggers left this evening, so that they would be out at the camp ready to move to the drill site when drilling is completed. They will gather information by putting delicate instruments down inside the drill hole. I'll know more about their results when they return.

Today's core was 100% recovered…and there were 5 boxes to work with. It was a mix of diamictite, mud rock intervals, full shell fossils, (as Chris put it "fossil city today"), sedimentary dikes, and scattered dispersed clasts. For once, I knew what all of these things meant. I've learned a lot in the few weeks that I've been working on this project. I will be doing a lot of explaining as I travel around doing presentations when I return to Crystal Lake.

I labeled all of the samples drilled on Saturday and Sunday. Seems that the guys missed me on Saturday…I also measured the magnetic susceptibility of each sample. Fabio, who by the way celebrated his BIRTHDAY today, and I drilled 39 new samples. The work goes on and on. We had a lot of fun today though and I drilled a few of the samples to break the job up.

I got COMPLETELY caught up on journaling…no small task, believe me. I did have time to attend a slide show this evening in the galley. The recreation department tries to provide opportunities for folks in McMurdo to share with others. Tonight Ed Anderson, (I think he works in the carpenter shop) gave a great slide show on his trip to Nepal and Tibet last year after leaving Antarctica. It was a nice break for me. I headed back to the computer lab at 9:30 and it's now 12:15 AM. I'm done…no more to tell you…at least not tonight. Talk to you tomorrow.

Betty :)

P.S. More photos from the Cape Roberts trip tonight. Can you tell I really enjoyed myself?

This was the first, but not the last iceberg we saw up close.

Me...(in case you can't tell) wearing the hard hat at the drill site.