Little Gortmaconnell, 04 April 2009
Post date: Apr 6, 2009 9:48:43 PM
Stephen Macnamara, Stephen McCullagh, Eoghan Mullan. 6 1/2 hours.
After Eoghan & Jock's promising report from the previous weekend, we went down to continue the good work. Weather was rainy in the morning so the pitch was pretty refreshing on the way in.
As Jock described, the dig was a really easy-going sand tunnel. They had opted to dig a tube along the right hand wall of the rift. We just widened it out to allow hands-and-knees progression instead of trying to dig at arm's length, and continued in the same direction, keeping tight to the wall. Steve had purchased a "Super Wonder Bar" bendy crowbar thing, which, despite being labelled the "Gay Bar", was quite effective in scraping away at the digface (Picture 1).
The sand soon reverted to tightly-packed mud and gravel which slowed digging again, but every so often we would hit some more sand - a bit of a mix. It's all very tightly packed, and it seems very strong and resistant to collapse. After 2.5 metres' progress we started to dig upwards in the hope of breaking out of the sediment bank quicker - but no sign yet.
Unlike rock removal which can reveal big spaces behind, every last cubic centimetre of space here is packed with stuff that must be scraped away, so it is time-consuming. Three people worked well - the last keeping the spoil heap under control further back in the rift. We jammed in some wooden stemples as steps up the spoil heap, because the sand turns into quicksand after leaving it for a week under the constant dripping from the ceiling.
Currently we are about 5m from the starting point of the first trip some weeks ago. It's an impressive crawl tube - the stuff of prison escape films. Starting to turn into a four-person dig - a second person is now needed in the tube to remove spoil (Picture 2). We are thinking of bringing in some lino to make spoil removal easier.
Róisín Lindsay came in for a quick dig towards the end, after her trip to Prods with Damien and Francesca. We were out for dusk to drive back to Belfast via the chippy in Blacklion.
Steve.
Picture 1: Steve modelling the 'Gay' Bar
Picture 2:Eoghan modelling the preferred technique for dirt removal