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8 July 2004
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NEW HOLE: 1301B
The drilling crew worked hard through the night and early this morning to complete the reentry cone so that operations on the Hole 1301B could begin today. The cone was completed, attached to the 20-inch casing, and successfully lowered to the ocean floor. We should begin drilling tomorrow.
Here is a partial update for today given by Adam Klaus, Expedition Project Manager/IODP-USIO Staff Scientist (USA):
“Last night the reentry took a little longer than before. Once the end of the casing and the camera/sonar sonar system were near the bottom, we could just barely see the rim of the reentry (R/E) cone and the "1301A" written on the upper inside part of the cone. The rest of the R/E cone was covered in sediment. When the casing was over the cone, we lowered and touched the upper part of the cone stirring up sediment/cuttings/etc. This prevented us from being able to see the R/E cone from that point on. As the cement shoe at the base of the 16-inch casing was not directly over the center of the cone, we didn't try to lower it at this point. We had to use the downward looking sonar system mounted on the camera frame to position the end of the casing over the center of the R/E cone to reenter. The casing was lowered into the hole until the casing hanger latched into the reentry cone and we cemented the bottom of the casing into the hole. The casing running tool was unlatched from the casing hanger and we retrieved the drill string (tripped the pipe back to the rig floor). The casing running tool should be back on board just about now (0800).
Once we unlatched we were still tripping the pipe as we started moving the ship in dynamic positioning mode (DP) 35 m toward N10.6°E. This will be the location of Hole 1301B. Throughout yesterday, last night, and this morning the ship's crew has been scrambling to assemble the reentry cone (R/E). Normally we assemble these on the moonpool doors, but we couldn't do that since we needed to open/close them for Hole 1301A operations. This morning we'll finish assembling the reentry cone and prepare the rig floor for assembling the 20-inch casing. We should be ready to deploy the reentry cone sometime midday today, but this depends on how quickly we can finish assembling the R/E cone. We'll be attaching ~39 m of 20-inch casing to the R/E cone.”
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 WEATHER REPORT. Cold with scattered showers. The waves weren’t bad today.
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 NEW PLAN. We had to change our plans as of last night. We are now on location for Hole 1301B. It is amazing how fast the new timeline is generated. There were a lot of late night and early morning meetings.
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 ALTERNATIVE WORK. Some scientists - such as Rosalind Coggon, Igneous and Metamorphic Petrologist (United Kingdom) - slave away on doctoral dissertations or other research projects while they are not working on their lab methods and while they wait for core.
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 REENTRY CONE CONSTRUCTION. This morning, the drilling crew completed construction of the reentry cone. This piece is critical for the success of Hole 1301B because many trips in and out of the hole have to be made for drilling, casing, coring, and logging. At approximately 2660 meters below sea level it would be virtually impossible to reenter the hole without this guidance.
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 HOW IS IT GOING IN THERE? This person is inspecting the work as the top and bottom sections of the reentry cone are being welded together. |
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 RACK THE CASING. The 20-inch casing is on the pipe racker just prior to putting it down the hole in the rig floor to the main deck to be attached to the base of the reentry cone.
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 ASSEMBLING THE CASING. Thirty-nine meters of 20-inch casing must be attached to the base of the reentry cone to support it and keep it from sinking into the soft sediment at the seafloor, and to stabilize the upper part of the hole. The rig floor crew is assembling two joints of 20-inch casing.
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 ON THE MOONPOOL. By midmorning the reentry cone was completed and over the moonpool, ready to be lowered. Unfortunately, the camera was elsewhere and I wasn’t able to take pictures as it was lowered into the sea.
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 PIPE READY TO TRIP. The JOIDES Resolution carries up to 10,500 meters of pipe for drilling in deep waters. Fortunately, we ONLY need about 3,500 meters of pipe for this expedition. Each stand of pipe (30 meters long) is assembled from three individual, 10 meters-long pieces of drill pipe.
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HOW IS IT GOING IN THERE? This person is inspecting the work as the top and bottom sections of the reentry cone are being welded together.
