Logging of the Borehole

Hi - I am catching up on my blog. We have been pretty busy for the last while. The drillers hit just over 1000 m deep early last week so they shipped us back out to the rig for the geophysical logging. Flat Stanley thought we were crazy as there were no trees to cut - but this is a different kind of logging in which different kinds of instruments are put all the way into the borehole to tell us different things about the rock - such as how magenetic the different rocks are, how much they weigh, and how fast sound goes through them. The instruments are called tools and they are lowered into the borehole using a big long wire rope using the winch in the picture. It was brought by the Thomas's all the way from Germany. The neatest tool is called the borehole televiewer and it makes an image of the borehole using ultrasound just like is done in the hospital. Here is a picture of some of the borehole inside - Flat Stanley - get out of the borehole - the pressure is too high there! You can see a lot of cracks that we can use to help us know about the rock.

This time was very busy - it was about 78 hours (more than 3 days) straight. We would take turns sleeping and working at the bunk house by the rig. Here are the four of us at the end of the 78 hour period - everyone is very happy - the logging was very successful and lots of good data was acquired.

Now they begin some more coring with a smaller core size called 'NQ' - this is basically for the experiment that I have to do in a few days. I hope they get a couple of hundred metres more of the borehole for the 'fracing' experiments - will keep you up to date.

Sad thing - I have not seen any penguins again - they joke out here that it is because Flat Stanley and I are out here now.