Dodo weblog 2007

Digging a hole is easy. But how to keep it dry? This is the ultimate challenge of the expedition. Remember in Mare aux Songes groundwater level almost equals the walking surface. If we want seeing dodo bones arranged in situ, we need a dry hole.

Option one for drilling a sheet-pile is using a 50 ton crane, the biggest you can get on the island. But imagine this mastodont to get stuck in the swamp, who would get it out? Therefore we decided to embrace option two, in short: Do It Yourselve. Aided by people of MTMD and with use of an excavator we dug rectangular trenches where the sheet-piles should be placed in. But all we dug up were stones, stones and ever more stones. No trace of bone. Was the bone layer gone? 

We decided to try another location. First scoop: stone. Second scoop: stone and gravel. And the third…YES!, BONES!

Beneath the bone layer there’s a impermeable layer of clay. Rene Floore managed to drill one of the metal sheets into the clay. Tonight we will figure out how to attach the ends of the sheets and make them watertight. This will be our taks for tomorrow. If we succeed to create a watertight compartment and pump it dry we can start the excavation.