After a bumpy and dusty ride we have arrived in the Challa Hotel in Taveta, which will be our base during the drilling expedition. The engineers are still busy constructing the barge from which the drilling will happen. The preparations, and especially the transport of all materials (heavy tubing, drill mud, cables, ...) take quite some time due to the steep slopes of the crater and the absence of a decent path up and down the rim. There is an endless amount of porters carrying equipment down the crater to the barge, which is getting more and more prepared for the real work!
in the mean time we have set up the lab in which the cores will be collected, scanned, and subsampled. We have been trained on the core scanner, so we know what to do when cores come in during ours shifts. Loes will work here in the night shift, whereas I am scheduled for the day shift. The variety of nationalities and equipment brought results in an interesting collection of plugs and adaptors, but everything is tested and seems to work (for now), so let the drilling begin!
Francien
Francien