Sept 10 Operations

Began coring at 0840.  Used flat-bottomed bit for the first core but it was thought that the coring rate was too slow.  A more aggressive, rounded-bottom bit was installed and coring continued to the end of the day.  Drilled/cored to 109 ft.  Ended coring operations for the day at 1800 hrs.

A problem was identified in that when drilling 5 ft core runs (using 10 ft core barrel) core lengths of ~7' 5" were often recovered.  This indicates that additional material is being incorporated into the core barrel.  It was observed that a plastic "rind" was often incorporated into  many sections of the core suggesting that some portion of the shale is being incorporated ductily into the core barrel.  It also was observed that the material in the core barrel shoe was extremely hard and difficult to get out.