1988 Core Drills

The above discussed report states in it's conclusion the necessity of doing some core drills, which they were able to do in July of 1988. For a moment let's consider the size of "core drills". Those taken during this 1988 independent group were 3 ½ inches in diameter. The entire surface of the site would therefore accommodate several hundred thousand 3 ½ inch core drills. How many were performed and what did they reveal?

In his August 19, 1988 "news" letter titled "A Search for the Elusive Ark", Dr. John Baumgardner wrote:

"...Between July 28th and August 7th we succeeded, praise God, in drilling four holes to a depth of ten meters and recovered reasonably good cores from each of the holes. Three of the holes were near the centerline of the site while the fourth was near the outer flank of the longitudinal hump....

Another notable discovery was the presence at three locations in the mudflow layer of nodules of the bright yellow mineral limonite. Limonite is the hydrated oxide of iron, and its occurrence in this environment appears to be anomalous. Just how anomalous is the crucial question, since the minerals in the rocks in the source area of the mudflow have a moderate iron content. However, during the months now that I have worked at the site, I have never seen this bright yellow material anywhere in the fissures or exposures in the mudflow clay. Because earlier investigations led us to suspect unusual amounts of iron in site, these occurrences of limonite are of special interest because they could represent the rusted remains of metallic iron objects.

A final observation concerning the core samples was the absence- apart from the limonite nodules- of possible evidence for man-made structure. There was, for example, no evidence for wood, petrified or otherwise. However, core drilling is severely limited in its ability to find buried archaeological structure, especially if it is sparsely distributed and has been significantly altered by decay and chemical weathering."

Taking 4 core specimens of 3 ½ inch diameters from a site 515 feet long does not provide a fair representation of material present. And even with this minute amount of specimen, evidence was found of an extremely high iron content, including limonite.

Conclusion

Both the radar scans and the core drills, we are told by the writer of the independent research results, do not rule out the possibility that this is a man-made structure.

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