Getting deeper into the Deep Fault Drilling Project,

We have now parked up the rotary air hammer drilling rig and cleared the site for setup of the diamond coring rig that we hope will arrive tomorrow (Friday), along with the rest of our geology team. Wireline logging equipment is en route from the USA and should arrive in New Zealand at the beginning of next week. It is great to have made progress so fast and we are hoping to start coring operations on Saturday, two days ahead of schedule.

In the photo, Virginia Toy and John Butt are looking pleased to have made such great progress. The Alpine Fault is exposed in the cliff face just above their heads, 150 m behind them.

In addition to the start of drilling activities, a team of people led by Rob Langridge (GNS Science) and Greg de Pascale (Canterbury Uni.) have confirmed Alpine Fault location to the north of our drill site and found basement rock exposed at the surface; and a seismic reflection survey led by Andrew Gorman (Otago Uni.) is almost complete at the drill site, which will help to tie geophysical properties of the fault zone with drilling results.

This is a really great start, thanks to the big team of people that have already helped.