In geoscientific drilling, scientists usually don’t just want to create a hole, but they’re interested in the rocks at different depths within the hole. That means drilling has to be in a way so that a drill core, a long column of rock from the centre of the hole can be brought to the surface. This process is called “coring”. The following schematic shows how coring works:
What happens after extracting the core from the ground? The video below explains the scientific drilling and analyses process, using the example of a drilling operation in Mexico. Whereas the Mexican core was drilled off the coast from a ship and then transported to Germany, our core will be extracted on land and will likely only have to travel within the UK for analyses and archiving.