Processed to 3833 feet, drilled to 3866 feet

Something has slowed drilling progress, but we aren't quite sure yet what it is.  The drillers are getting excellent runs, but much more slowly than they should.  The only solution to this problem is to systematically investigate all the possible causes of the problem, and they haven't found that cause yet.  Tonight, the night shift will drill with a different style bit and see how the drilling rate changes.  If that doesn't help, they'll have to do a "wet trip," filling the drill string with water and checking it for cracks as they pull it out of the hole. 

Here on campus, in the morning we boxed rock core to a depth of 3833 ft, 40 ft deeper than yesterday.  In the afternoon, we logged to a depth of 2099 ft.  By the end of the day we started logging the most plagioclase-rich rock we've seen during the project.  If you'd like to get a look at this rock, click here and zoom in.