Shortly after the set-back that the ICDP/HSPDP Chew Bahir drilling project will be postponed to autumn 2014, Frank Schaebitz received unexpectedly the tempting offer from Addis Geosystems Ltd. to get the top 50 m of sediment within the next three months. Expecting continuous sediments older than 200,000 years, Frank accepted this offer to minimise the time delay also of importance for projects within the Collaborative Research Centre 806.
And good things come, simultaneously to the Northern Awash drilling project, our team (Asfawossen Asrat, Gerrit Dorenbeck, Henry Lamb and Frank Schaebitz) successfully started to core the first metres of sediment since two days. Just yesterday (March 20th), we received the euphoric message that they are already down to 20 m with an excellent recovery rate. As expected from the geophysical survey and pre-site surveys, the sediment consists of uniform clayey silt. Unfortunately, the internet connection is rather poor and the data transfer is not sufficient to send any photos of the actual Chew Bahir drilling. However, please bear with us for the next two weeks, we hope to get more frequent news once they reached their target depth of 50 m. Good luck to the Chew Bahir team and happy drilling!
 The new drilling site close to "CB-05" under blue skies. The drillers prepare a new run to core the next two metres of Chew Bahir sediment. Photo: Frank Schäbitz |
