And here is what a fully assembled drilling barge looks like. Tomorrow we'll do our final system and safety checks, and Beau Marshall will run a safety briefing and tour of the barge for the entire team. There are 29 of us on site now (my head is spinning just a little bit), and there will be 32 tomorrow morning, so the briefing will be quite a scene. We expect to launch our floating drilling civilization on Friday, and I'd put big money on the first samples arriving on deck Saturday. Wish us luck! (TDP on facebook) Most of the geomicrobiologists arrived this morning by bus from Makassar. They will investigate how the unique environmental geochemistry of Lake Towuti has evolved over time via biogeochemical analyses of the drill cores. Lake Towuti stands among the world's largest iron-rich lakes, and the ophiolite surrounding the lake supplies metals that drive important biogeochemical and microbiological processes within the lake. To facilitate the analyses, the geomicrobiologists use a mobile laboratory container that was shipped from the GFZ in Germany called the BUGLab. Today, they've been busy unpacking their shipped materials and getting the BUGLab ready for action. If you've been checking our page sporadically, make sure you like our page, so you won't miss important updates from us. Things will be getting even more exciting when the drilling barge is towed to our first site on Friday „smile“-Emoticon -satrio wicaksono (TDP on facebook)