Out to the ANDRILL rig - finally!!

Hi - Big day. After the morning meeting we looked at the weather and decided to go out to the rig. Eight of us got our ECW gear on and hopped in two of the Mattracks for the long (~ 2 hour) drive out (about 38 km from McMurdo) on the sea ice. It was cloudy still and a bit windy so Mount Erebus (the volcano) was looking ominous. When we leave we have to call in on the radio to say 'MacOps, MacOps, this is vehicle 157 driver Blank (Leslie Blank was our driver) loaded with 4 souls, enroute to ANDRILL site, ETA of 13:30, contact Laura at extension 1234 beeper 4567'. Then they tell us it is okay to go. If we do not call back to say we arrived they will immediately begin the SAR (Search and Rescue) operations - so it is very important to call so you do not get into trouble!





Finally, the drill rig appeared. It is difficult to see as it has a white shroud which does not stand out from the snow until your are close. We pulled up and finally got out to stretch after our long trip.


Everyone was pretty busy. A core was just being retrieved from the earth (about 550 m below the sea floor which is about 400 m from the ice surface). The core is a cylinder of the rock that has been cut - it is about 3 m long.

Here is an interesting piece of core - it may not look like much but it is a certain kind of rock that tells us that at the time it was put down the earth had to be cold and that ice covered the sea here. The name of the rock is called 'diamict'. But it is also interesting to my colleagues and me because of the long fracture in it - I know you may think I am crazy but that fracture tells us a lot about the forces (stresses) in the earth (for the academics see Li and Schmitt, 1998 :)).
Up inside the rig to see. Oh Oh - Andrew - get that pipe wrench out of your ear - you should never stick anything in your ear!! (Actually, Andrew is trying to listen for two small clicks made when the core barrel locks into place after falling nearly 1 km down through the drilling pipe! If he does not hear the clicks then that can be a problem as the core may not be cut properly and lost. These guys are scientific drillers - they are not paid by the foot as most drillers in the oil or mining industry would be - they are paid to get complete sets of core or else the project would be a waste).

We then had a big discussion of how to proceed. In such projects one can never know for sure what will happen and so one has to keep in mind how to best proceed. It looks like I will be here till the end now as I do not think that I can carry out the hydraulic fracture in some of the rocks which are too soft that they recently went through (Cheryl will be sad but my grad students are happy I expect). This picture shows Alex Pyne (the rig engineer) discussing the various options and using the kitchen steel wall as a blackboard! We made plans for me to go out to begin setup early next week assuming more of the equipment arrives (it should at 2:00 am tonight on the scheduled C-17 flight from ChristChurch).


Finally, just before we returned to McMurdo, the helicopter came out to pick up the core. They had not been able to for awhile due to the bad weather. Flat Stanley - get away from the rear blades - that is the most dangerous place you can stand!!! and the pilot will soon tell you to get away.







One final note - all you tech types born in the later part of the baby boom will very likely be familiar with our hero - Tom Swift Jr (well, actually the new Tom Swift Jr.) Remember old Tom - he was a gadzillionaire youth who made lots of great inventions as he basically had most of the military/industrial complex at his disposal - well, this is what it seems like being at McMurdo! Eat your heart out!



Li, Y.Y., and D.R. Schmitt, Drilling induced core fractures and in situ stress, J. Geophys. Res., 103, 5225-5239, 1998