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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Dec 28, 2009 - 01:51am PT
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Cool BASE104. I look forward to your post.
In the oil patch, I would sit wells for mainly 2 reasons:
(1) to witness and QA/QC geophysical logs. Generally it was Schlumberger running the logs. If it was a production well, I would select the completion interval.
(2) describe core.
For Classified exploratory wells, we would communicate with headquarters from the offshore rig using a special phone that would scramble the communication. There were scouts (industrial spies) on the coast with binoculars trying to figure out what we were up to.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Dec 28, 2009 - 01:56am PT
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There are few things in life more fun, and rewarding, than to go climbing with someone's who's really knowledgeable about some aspect of the natural or human history of a place, and able to communicate it. A good example being Bryan and geology.
Another gratuitous May Lake photo, maybe with some interesting geology.
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Minerals
Social climber
The Deli
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 28, 2009 - 02:06am PT
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There you go, Anders! That’s the goods in the lower left of your photo – the white rock. I think it’s called Quartzite Point but I am not sure. You can also see some brown metamorphic rock just above the trees, on the far left of the photo. If one were to walk along the trail past the High Sierra Camp and around the south end of the lake, they couldn’t miss the plethora of chaos!
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Dec 28, 2009 - 02:36am PT
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"As a geologist what do you do for work now?"
I have an MSc from UC Davis (1980). I spent the 1st 10 years working for an oil company mostly doing subsurface mapping, drilling oil & gas production wells in the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valley, and sitting production and exploratory wells off shore southern California. They wanted to transfer me to Bakersfield in 1990, so I left the oil patch and transitioned into Contaminant Hydrogeology.
Since 1990 I've been working on a large scale ground water cleanup project at a DOE Superfund site in the Altamont Hills called Site 300. It's a "secret" 10-square mile high explosives test site located just south of the windmills at Altamont Pass that has been operated by Univ of Cal (Lawrence Livermore Lab)for DOE since the mid-1950s. A variety of explosives tests have been conducted there over the last several decades partly for the DOE's Stockpile Stewardship program. LLNL weapons scientists test the non-fissionable, chemical explosive components of nuclear weapons (H-bomb triggers) in open-air tests that were conducted on firing tables. From the late 1950s to the late 1990s the test assemblies contained chemical explosives mainly mixtures of RDX & HMX with varying amounts of tritium (an isotope of hydrogen). Depleted uranium was used as a surrogate for the plutonium core of the triggers. Now most of the tests are done in a highly fortified indoor test facility called the Contained Firing Facility to protect the environment. They also tested the chemical explosives under different temperature and pressure conditions to determine what range of conditions they are safe and reliable. They used the chlorinated solvent TCE as a heat exchange fluid in these tests.
As you can imagine, after 40 years of explosives testing, the soil and ground water at the site has been significantly impacted with various chemicals. Over 600 wells have been drilled at the site to monitor the ground water. Additionally, several extraction wells and treatment facilities have been installed to extract and treat the contaminated ground water. Generally we remove the contaminants from ground water using Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) and chemical-specific ion exchange resins and inject the treated water back into the subsurface to replenish the aquifer. I supervise a team of hydrogeologists on this project. We're trying to cleanup the ground water and keep the contaminants from migrating offsite. It's a very sparsely populated area, so there's no risk to the public from the contaminated ground water.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Dec 28, 2009 - 04:51am PT
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hey there all, say, athis is turning into all kinds of neat stuff here... say, minerals, i sure have loved hearing about all this "rock work" ...
it reminds me when i was in school and had my OWN hand lens... was so much fun... i loved studying rocks...
oh my---sure wish someone would have encouraged me that you could do something with this study-fun, for a living... but then again, i reckon i never would have been a mom and had kids... :O
would have been out all over creation, chasing rocks.... though in a diffrent way than chappy did... :)
thanks for the wonderful and very different share here, all...
*used to have a neat rock collection too..
say, SOME of you all may have known of the ROCK SHOP in ?oh my... i can't even remember now, but you if you lived in san jose, you know what i mean... EVERYONE went there... (was it in santa clara?) ...
hmm....CAMPBELL! THAT'S IT!!!.... :)
the ol' campbell rock shop!!! me and my brothers loved it there...
thanks again, all... :)
*somehow, my ol' handlens got lost by the grandkids, :(
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hooblie
climber
from where the anecdotes roam
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Dec 28, 2009 - 05:28am PT
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my little town in montana was the site of summer geology field camps for some of the east coast ivy league colleges...
dartmouth, princeton, maybe yale and others.
it was always good sport to identify the groups when they were out of context, say for instance at the laundrymat or scarfing pizza.
it's not like other groups who had just emerged from the backcountry didn't provide good cover for them, but there's just something about geology students that can be spotted from a distance... it's ok that i point this out, as they say it takes one to know one.
on a similar note, anchorage provided the challenge of spotting international flight crews laying over and strolling downtown in a pod. one impeccable grayhaired captain, a well behaved first mate, a (wildcard) flight engineer, and three attractive stewardesses. the game was easy back in the eighties. lacking actual levi's, the embroidery on the pockets of their european designer jeans gave them away.
happy to say, improved powers of discernment are required now, what with lady captains and the advent of "stewards"
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Dec 28, 2009 - 12:06pm PT
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BASE104: on your 3rd order derivative map...the red areas are where the marker bed is high (anticlines) and the blue is where it is low (synclines)...correct? If so, looks like you have a couple of NE-SW trending anticlinal structures that are probably existing oil fields. If not, looks like new prospects.
RE geophysical logs...when I started on the ground water cleanup project, I brought on a new geophysical logging contractor and started using these logs to characterize the subsurface similar to the way this technology is used in the oil patch.
Interesting about your wife's work. To clarify, the DOE project I'm working on is a CERCLA site so it is regulated like other Superfund sites but it is not funded by Superfund. It is funded by DOE under their Environmental Management program and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Dec 28, 2009 - 08:42pm PT
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BASE104: sure that makes perfect sense. All subsurface mapping that I did in the oil patch used sea level as the datum. I used to interpret seismic data in the Sacramento Valley where all the obvious anticlincal structures had long since been drilled, so we were looking for more subtle traps beneath unconformities. Back then "bright spot" analysis of seismic amplitude with offset was used to explore for gas reservoirs...not sure if this method is still widely used. Anyway thanks for posting that...brings back memories.
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Minerals
Social climber
The Deli
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 28, 2009 - 10:02pm PT
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Tradster, thanks for posting about your work. You have been working at the same site for almost 20 years? Wow, that must be quite a mess to clean up. I had to look up the difference between a hydrologist and a hydrogeologist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogeology
Where’s Wes?
Tradster, your cleanup site reminds me of a test site here in Northern Nevada, in the Sand Springs Range, east of Fallon. Have you heard of Project Shoal? I hadn’t until I saw it on the map and was checking out the granite in the area to begin with. According to some of the guys at the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, the testing was done to see what type of a seismic “signature” is produced during an underground nuke test in granitic bedrock. Our government was trying to keep track of what the Russians were up to.
5,309.21 feet deep. But this is probably a pretty simple/shallow well, compared to what you guys are used to working with.
Is this another well-head? Sure looks like a fresh paint job! There is another one in the background.
Hey BASE104, neat map! Although it’s not the kind of geologic map that we Yosemite guys are used to looking at! Thanks for posting it!
“There are actually two trends in there. The big one is the NE/SW one..which is late Pennsylvanian folding. You can also see, especially on the north side, a NW/SE trend which is from the Laramide Orogeny.”
Cool! I can relate to that part. But, better not give us too many hints or the industry spies will be onto you! ;)
Hey, I screwed up some of the captions on my big photo post and mislabeled metasedimentary rock as metavolcanic rock. I don’t know what I was thinking… DUH! Sorry about that! I edited the post to fix things. I believe that the tightly-banded stuff with a lot of epidote is part of the Horse Canyon Sequence, but I’m just a granite guy, trying to explain metamorphic rocks! Yeah, I do need to go back to school!
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Dec 28, 2009 - 10:47pm PT
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Minerals - thanks for posting that. I'm not familiar with Project Shoal. There is a group at Lawrence Livermore Lab that specializes in analyzing seismic data from a worldwide monitoring network that was set up for Nuclear Test Ban Treaty verification. Generally natural earthquakes generate larger magnitude Shear waves for a given magnitude event than an explosion induced earthquake. This makes sense when you consider that a natural earthquake is generated when rocks under stress break and move past each other, whereas an explosion generates mainly a compressional wave that emanates outward from its source. But back in 1963 at the height of the Cold War, you are right, the Project Shoal experiment was probably used to study explosion induced seismic signatures and calibrate seismic monitoring instruments to explosive yield to keep tabs on the former Soviets.
The 5,000+ ft well is deep for a ground water well but only moderate depth for an oil or gas well.
There was an underground test at the Nevada Test site, I don't remember the name of the shot. It was situated just above or in close proximity to a more dense geologic unit than was known to exist at this location. It may have been near a blind thrust fault. Anyway when the shot went off there was such a large magnitude reflection off this denser unit that the shot breached the surface and blew radioactive material into the atmosphere.
If Ed Hartouni checks this thread, I'm sure he can elaborate more eloquently on these topics than I can. If you are interested in the history of Nuclear Weapons testing check out the movie "Trinity and Beyond"
You have been working at the same site for almost 20 years?
Hard to believe even for me but that's correct. It's actually several projects (separate ground water plumes) within one large project. We are getting ready to drill ~15 wells. They vary in depth from 50 to 350 ft. In many of the boreholes for these wells we will run Optical Televiewer surveys. This is an oriented, digital camera that generates a high resolution image of the borehole wall as a function of depth. We use it to identify depositional features, measure strike and dip, and characterize fractures. The main geologic unit that we are drilling in is the late Miocene Neroly Formation, a non-marine sequence of Andesitic volcanic-rich blue sandstones and conglomertes, and finer grained siltstones and claystones. Most of the contaminated aquifers are contained within this formation. The provenance of the volcanics is the Stanislaus Volcanics in the Sierra foothills.
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Dec 29, 2009 - 12:52am PT
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Minerals: back to the original topic of this thread, I was looking at a 1999 paper "Triassic caldera at Tioga Pass,Yosemite National Park, California: Structural relationships and significance" by Schwieckert & Lahren. The geologic map in Figure 1 shows granitic rocks just east of Mt Dana, where 3rd Pillar is located, as part of the Lee Vining Cyn Triassic and Jurassic granitic rocks. Interesting...I thought 3rd pillar was part of the younger Cretaceous Toulumne sequence.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Dec 29, 2009 - 01:43pm PT
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hey there say, hooblie... if you post again and see this, please email me... thanks... :)
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Minerals
Social climber
The Deli
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 30, 2009 - 07:56pm PT
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Tradster, thanks for the additional info on nuke testing. I don’t know much, but have enjoyed looking at the Nevada Test Site on Google Earth! Wow…
“In many of the boreholes for these wells we will run Optical Televiewer surveys. This is an oriented, digital camera that generates a high resolution image of the borehole wall as a function of depth. We use it to identify depositional features, measure strike and dip, and characterize fractures.”
Now that is cool! Have any photos to post or is that top secret?
I like the conglomerate above the blue seds, but we need to wait for all of that stuff to be buried to a depth of several kilometers or more, heated up, and then squished to Hell, then exposed again for us to look at! I can’t wait! ;)
Operation Plowshare? Oh yeah, the “Sedan” crater! I remember looking at that one on Google Earth! Way cool (hot?)!!! Thanks, BASE104!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedan_(nuclear_test);
Wiki Rules!!!
Hmmm, that subsurface mapping stuff is starting to sound difficult. I think I need to go for a hike to do any mapping, and look at outcrops in the sunlight. :)
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Minerals
Social climber
The Deli
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 30, 2009 - 09:25pm PT
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Yeah, I noticed Rifle on that list too… Do the bolt hangers glow at night? Jeeze, if anything, I’d expect wall climbers to be the ones who look like they have been exposed to too much radiation…
Lee Vining Canyon granite info in (slow) combobulation…
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cleo
Social climber
Berkeley, CA
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Dec 30, 2009 - 10:17pm PT
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Ho boy, I need to dig up some photos, can't even keep up with this thread!
Lessee, I spent a couple years in Wyoming as one of those Schlumberger logging engineers in the gas patch.
Spent a few more years running around places like NTS and WSMR (white sands) doing geological site characterization. Everything from seismic surveys to drilling holes to, yes, even running optical televiewers (after SLB, I never thought I'd log again, boy was I wrong!) And we played tourist and only got into a minor amount of trouble out there (Sedan crater is impressive!)
Laters... need to dig up the photos, then I need to scan them, might take a couple of weeks.
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
Top of the 5.2-5.12 Boulder
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Dec 30, 2009 - 10:20pm PT
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Right on, Cleo.....
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luggi
Trad climber
from the backseat of Jake& Elwood Blues car
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Dec 30, 2009 - 10:27pm PT
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With all the OT stuff on here...this needs to keep going..it is interesting..it decribes rock where we want to be on and the place...it has porn..(geo porn that it is and naked rock)...give Minerals, Cleo and the Trad man probs for the education..and of course the stuff that we have forgotten in college that now we wished we could remember.
Are there any brain cell re generation people here?????
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Dec 31, 2009 - 12:43am PT
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Where in Wyo did you work for Slumberj Cleo? I worked with them logging wells in Gillette, a lifetime ago.
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