10 days of silence from the COSC-2 project. Status: 1235 m depth (after some delay due to repairs and problems with the core barrel and drill bits that are solved by now) and the first short logging campaign is presently going on. Drilling will commence again tomorrow. We are still in the unit that we entered at about 825 m, at the bottom of the black shale. It seems that the entire "imbricate unit" defined by the site investigations consists of these sandstones, conglomerates and volcanic/volcanosedimentary rocks with distinct internal deformation zones, and not of imbricated alum shale with associated over- and underlying rocks. From what we have seen, we conclude that the black shale that we drilled between ~775 and 825 m is the alum shale and that it's absence in the "imbricate unit" suggests that is not a tectonic repetition, i.e. it is unlikely that we will encounter it again. The observations are also supported by the first results from downhole logging. In the next 100 m, we will encounter the horizon that we originally interpreted as the basal Caledonian décollement, hosted in alum shale at it's original stratigraphic level ... obviously not very likely anymore. There wouldn't be a need for scientific drilling if we'd know everything in advance. But we wonder what surprise will be next!"