Last night we brought up a core that potentially holds the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). This morning at breakfast the questions being asked at each table were centered on the cores:

“Did we split the PETM core yet?”

“When are we going to split the PETM?”

“How many more hours until the PETM core reaches room temperature so we can split it?”

Everyone was talking about it. The split time was pushed back and pushed back since we wanted to do as many high-resolution tests as we could. If it does hold the PETM, we wanted to make sure to have as much data as possible! Then the saw on the cutting table malfunctioned! No core was damaged but it did delay the reveal of the potential PETM core. Our engineers and technicians had to take apart the entire saw to repair the problem. Today has been a lesson in patience…

Stratigraphic Correlator Sandy is holding what we think might be the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum core!