The scientists are writing their "methods sections." The methods section for a laboratory is a description of what techniques will be used by the scientists and technicians to collect the data that will be used for their research projects. These will be published in the professional publication describing the scientific work on IODP Expedition 301. In the past, the ODP volumes have been called Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program: Initial Reports XXX where the XXX refers to the Leg number.

Some scientists are continuing to complete the preparations on the CORKS so that they are ready for deployment next week. Drilling continues to be successful. The word among the experienced hard rock scientists is that going through the basaltic basement is one of the more tricky types of drilling that this ship does.

I have a few pictures to show how we keep our clothes clean on a two month trip out to sea.

Here is a partial update for today given by the Expedition Project Manager and JR Staff Scientist, Adam Klaus:

“Happy July 1st! Early this morning the pilot bit/U-R (underreamer) encountered hard formation (basaltic basement) at ~262 mbsf (meters below the seafloor). As the U-R is not designed for very hard formations, we stopped drilling and started the process of tripping out of the hole (retrieving the entire drill string). The first thing we have to do is “rack” the top drive - which simply means to disconnect the top drive from the top of the drill string and swing it back out of the way. The top drive is the large yellow motor that provides rotation to the drill pipe and allows us to pump seawater/mud through it at the same time. With the top drive removed, the drillers can remove complete stands of drill pipe each time (a stand = 3 individual pieces of pipe). If we must leave the top drive connected (to maintain rotation/pumping), there is not enough room in the derrick to pull complete stands and we have to remove “doubles” and “singles” (2 or 1 pieces of drill pipe) which takes more time. We started tripping out of the hole just after 0600 this morning. Next step is to assemble the bicenter bit and open up the bottom of the hole into the uppermost basaltic basement.”

Strange weather today. It got very calm for a bit, the wind shifted and by late afternoon we had rain and high seas. Sorry, no picture of the rough weather. NO SEA SICKNESS—YEAH!

Clean Clothes. I was poking around the ship this morning and found Catermar’s Rogerio Cornelio, Batista O Artista, and Nuno Miguel of Portugal in the laundry room. Our hotel staff takes very good care of us. Every day they make our beds and do any laundry that we set out.

We each have a laundry bag. When I leave my room for the day, I just leave the bag outside my door, and when I return the bag is back with clean folded clothes. My wife, Stacia, and I could sure use this service back home in Proctorsville, VT.

CORK Geochemist, Geoff Wheat, United States, was this morning’s presenter. He talked about the OsmoSampler pumps that will be used on the CORKs for this expedition. Check out my June 29 entry for an explanation of how these work.

ALL SALTED UP! Finally, we got salt in all of the OsmoSamplers. All that remains for Geoff Wheat and the other geochemists to do is place them in the CORKs.

Drilling basement. Joe Attryde, Core Technician, United States, Gregorio (Jo-Jo) Magtanong, Floorman, Philippines, and Sam Fadri, Assistant Driller, Philippines, discuss the removal of the underreamer. The drillers have reached basement and need to change to a stronger bit to drill through the basement basalts.

Bicenter Bit. Now that Hole 1301 has been drilled to basement, the drillers need to change to a stronger drill bit. This bicenter bit will be used to drill 10-15 meters into the basalt so that the 16” casing can be set through the sediment and into the upper part of the basement. This drill bit is experimental. It was a huge success.

Levers in action!!! The crew couldn’t turn the pipe to tighten it on the bicenter bit with the bar they had. They extended the pipe using a bar. Here are some basic physics questions that you can test yourself with: What class lever is this? Why did the extra length make the job possible?

Afraid of heights? You don’t want to do this. “Derrick Man” going up the rig to make adjustments to the draw works.

Excellent view of the drilling floor. The bicenter bit is attached and ready to be lowered. You can see many stands of pipe in the distance ready to be attached to the drill string. I have an excellent view of the drilling when I stand on top of the science stack.

Pride in safety. Today, we heard the safety guidelines for the Chemistry and Microbiology labs from Burney Hamlin, Lab Officer, United States.

I WANT MY SAMPLES!!! The geochemists are discussing how much pore water they expect from drilling on this expedition. They are negotiating who will get how much water. This is a very important discussion because the water is obtained by squeezing portions of the core samples that come out of the well. They are very small samples and produce even smaller amounts of pore water. It is expected that they will get about 50 ml of water from each 20 cm section of sediment. --Not much water to share between 8-10 scientists. Pictured from left to right are: Takuroh Noguchi, Japan; Sam Hulme, United States; Geoff Wheat, United States; Verena Heuer, Germany; Mark Nielson, United States; and Roz Coggon, United Kingdom.