David Murphy's blog

I’ve been looking down a microscope all day and most of yesterday. I spent the previous few days describing core. I am feeling so negative affects. I’m struggling to remember simple passwords, my eyes feel funny and my head is not quite right.

Right so, we are nearing the end of the drilling. I’m also nearing the end of my toothpaste, my soap and worst of allmy coffee beans. I think I would prefer to be smelly and have mouldy teeth than do without my morning coffee. It will be coffee rationing from now on.

We’re on the way again. Just don’t know what we’re goin’ ta find. In our fun adventure out to sea, we’re all wondering what we’ll get when we drill a hole again.

What’s goin’ on out in the middle of the Pacific? Not quite the middle of the Pacific I suppose, but way, way out in the middle of nowhere. We saw a ship yesterday. There was talk of swimming for it to see if they had any beer on board. The temptation was there, but it was far away and moving faster than I can swim.

Well it's been a quietish day of mostly writing. I'm trying to put together the site report for the last site. It is due on Tuesday. We should have it done in plenty time as it was not that complicated for the alteration perspective of Adelié and I.

 So the drilling comes to an end for this site. We’ve been drilling like mad things, that’s for sure. But the rate of penetration has been pretty slow so, while we get great rocks, we have not got too many of them.

 It is not too hectic just now. There was some nice core to log. I took an awesome photo of some cross cutting veins, one of which has impeded a reaction front. It is a fabulous bit of chemistry frozen in time and space. But I’m not showing it to you guys, you can look it up in the report in 12 months time.

We got some sunshine today at last. It’s been raining heavily for the last few days so that we’ve been forced to stay mostly inside. But today the sun came out. So after breakfast, which was a roast lamb dinner, I went up to the top deck and sat in the sun watching the sea.

Another day is done. New core has started to arrive, all sedimentary to begin with. But the last vestiges of data that requires interpreting from the previous drill hole is still hanging about hauntingly. So it’s a mad combination of report writing and data interp for Adelie, my cross shift counterpart, and me.

 Well the first site is done. It’s been interesting and a bit full on. All the scientists are feeling exhausted with the long days of logging and with getting a consistent work flow from one group to another. Group work is hard!