It could vaporize a rock and identify its minerals from the spectrum of light they emitted, or drill a sample and tease apart its chemical constituents.
In its Fruta del Norte site a drill core showed a rich 32 troy ounces of gold per ton of rock.
Houston contractor Parker Drilling (nyse: PKD - news - people ) has had its share of woes since building Sunkar, a barge designed to drill in the icy, shallow waters of the Caspian.
As the truck was entering the bridge, its load -- which Rudeen described as an equipment casing form for a drill rig -- hit a support girder, causing the bridge to collapse.
The company had to take a massive writedown of its inventories after orders for 1, 965 tons of drill pipes for customers in North America, Russia and Central Asia were canceled.
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Curiosity will use a drill and scoop, which are located at the end of its robotic arm, to gather soil and powdered samples of rock interiors, then sieve and parcel out these samples into the rover's analytical laboratory instruments.
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Its legendary operational drill entails everything from training drivers to hold their keys on a pinky finger so they don't waste time fumbling for them in pockets to asking employees to clean off desks at day's end so they can be clear for takeoff in the a.m.
South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin told a parliamentary committee in Seoul that the North has moved a medium-range missile to its East coast for an imminent test firing or military drill, according to the semi-official South Korean news agency Yonhap.
But the president also makes the point that a country with only 2% of the world's oil reserves cannot simply drill its way to lower petrol prices.
Just before halting its investigations, the nuclear-powered rover used the drill at the end of its 7-foot-long robotic arm to bore into a rock near where it landed and analyze the powder.
Then on New Year's Eve, the drill barge Kulluk had to be cut loose in a severe storm while being towed back to its winter home port in Seattle.
But a Bush administration mandate to fast track energy development across the West has energy companies eager to drill in its habitat.
In its update yesterday, McMoran says it is injecting a barite solvent to clean out the perforations, or holes in the drill pipe, through which the gas will flow.
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