November 8, 1975: Saturday

Slept ‘til nine a.m. At the rig, they had ten feet of fine to coarse sand, gotten up by a sampler devised by Jim Gupwell.

It’s not really core. And Cal decides what to do with it. Describe it and put it in a box.

Dr. Treves, Doug Howie, and Nartsiss come out. At one time we had a Canuck, a Jap, a Commie, nineteen Kiwi’s, and four Damn Yankees. Too bad that Aussie Priest wasn’t around.

Nartsiss runs off to look at things. The rest of us set up ice thickness rods. The ice is exactly two meters. We’ll read them every day.

Nakai teaches me how to operate the gas chromatograph and how to interpret the results. I even run a couple of air samples through and do calculations (very rough estimates): 20% O2, 70% N2 and 23.2% O2, 76.8% N2. We discuss problems.

I still don’t know how to go about getting water samples to put in. He’ll show me tomorrow.

The gas chromatograph is much simpler than the photo micron sizer. Maybe it’s because I understand the principle behind it much better. Different gases diffuse through helium at different rates. When a concentration of gas reaches the detector, it activates the recorder. Whether there are larger or smaller amounts of gas are determined by the amount of current passed during detection, and thus the area under the curve on the graph. I’m not much on electronics. So this explanation is genuinely worthless.

Sidebar: The pressurized gas bottles are written in Japanese, of course. It says, “herium.”

It’s very cold and windy today, cluggy in the North. Storm warnings from Mac Center Weather predict a 6:00 a.m. arrival.

I go in the drill shack to take pictures of them bringing up pipe. I wish Cal and I can agree on a schedule or at least get some core, so that I don’t feel so guilty about doing nothing. I am confused about what I’m supposed to do.

Howard C. is not an especially good writer. But he remembers things that are emotional to my heart.

He has a jaundiced view of baseball.

He speaks better than he writes, let’s say.

About eleven o’clock we get another sample from Gupwell’s device. It’s from 420 feet, 16 feet below the surface. Coarse sand with large basalt pebbles. I help Cal record this. Perhaps I’ll eventually get the hang of these things.

Martin tells me the obscene version of Dangerous Dan McGrew and the Lady Known as Lou.