2008 January 2 (Day 15)
Weather: Fine but Cloudy
Site: C0006 (NT1-03) (33°01’ N, 136°47’ E)

Drilling operations with the ESCS system continued with good recovery and good quality cores. Coring time increased due to the necessity of removing sinker bar and wireline from drill pipe during coring - this both increased the control over flow rate at the bit (better core quality/recovery), and decreased the amount of water leakage at the wireline BOP and coreline mud bucket (decrease chances for more electrical problems on the drill floor). DVTP runs had mixed success - two runs had delivery/recovery problems and two runs had data recording problems. We are continuing to work on these issues. Material recovered is becoming more lithified, but we are still recovering interlayered sand, silt and clay with some ash, all of relatively young age.