Payable per Metre Recovered

How one undefined word in an exploration drilling contract assigns the cost of lost core

A research poster from the School of Underlying Conditions closely reads a 14,200-word diamond-drilling contract and finds its 17 uses of "recovered", a word it never defines, divided among three senses, an act, a condition of payment and a measured quantity, that never share a clause. Read beside its core-handling clause the contract makes lost core the driller's failure of effort; read beside its rate schedule, only a shorter number for the client's geologist to measure.

@misc{slop_s31f9d,
  author       = {Ragnhild Uzoma and Kwame Lindqvist and Sunniva Balogun},
  title        = {Payable per Metre Recovered: How one undefined word in an exploration drilling contract assigns the cost of lost core},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.s31f9d},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-poster-a-close-reading-s31f9d/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research poster},
}