August 1, 2007

• Drilling: Phase 1

  First things first: THE PICKS!  Please join!  All are welcome.  You just need a Yahoo! ID.
  
  NFL (13th year in a row!): ID=10217 pw=sylmar
  College: ID=6802 pw=sylmar
  
  It should be fun, please sign up!
  
  
  
  Well, this is something.  What a way to start my first full-time job.  I worked 86.5 hours last week, not including the 8 hours I was credited with by working through a holiday (Pioneer Day… it’s a LDS/Utah thing).  I’m back to civilization this week but I’m back in the field on Friday.
  
  
  
  Here is my life and home in the field.  I live in the trailer (called the Hideout) on the right, and work at the rig on the left.
  
  
  My main job is looking at what comes out of the machine called the shaker.  I concentrate on the a’a, rather than the pahoehoe.
  
  
  
  
  This is the hole in the ground.  You can look at it, but it’ll cost ya.
  
  
  
  At the end of drilling, we have chip trays which act as our stratigraphic column.  With the help of geophysics gizmos, we pick the best layers for water.
  
  
  
  This is the end of my first hole, ‘triple completion’ as they say in the biz.  That means we put three wells in the hole screened at different depths, to get a look at the different strata within the aquifer.  This site has a strong upward gradient, meaning the deepest well in screen is shallowest in water and the water moves from deep to shallow.
  
  
  
  It can be a very dirty, sweaty, muddy, hot job at times.
  
  
  
  Geologists are not at all immune.
  
  
  
  As I said before, this is a hotly debated issue.  I saw a bumper sticker that said “Remember Owens Valley.”  I had to get that one, even though I am impartial as a scientist.  Nevada state law says that groundwater is the property of the state’s residents as a whole, and it is to be allocated as needed.  The question is, can they do it without disruption of livelihoods and federally-protected areas like Fish Springs NWR and Great Basin NP.
  
  
  
  Speaking of Great Basin NP, I have been several times now when I have free times for rig breaks and transitions.  This is the Wheeler Peak cirque.  I bet you’d never guess that Nevada, the driest and one of the hottest states in the US, has an active glacier!
  
  
  
  The other big attractions are the Bristlecone Pines and Lehman Caves.  Both are worth seeing.
  
  
  
  
  On the job site, you do get lonely, so it’s always nice to have visitors. In my trailor, none of these have made an appearance, but bugs a plenty.
  
  
  
  
  
  That’s my geologist.
  
  
  
  Whenever I feel low and tired in the field, I usually think, at least I’m not in the Pink Palace. That’s the other trailer… a 1961 model with no A/C, no fridge, no toilet, no CD player, no water system, and no hope.  If someone wants to come by and implode it with their own mindpower, please, do us all a favor and do it.  Since the start, we now have a third trailer called the Scamper.  It is OK, but my trailer is better.
  
  A story with trailers…
  
  My boss is a bike enthusiast.  He left to drive to another site one day and left his bike resting on the front of the trailer.  After he left, his bike slipped so that the handlebars had come into contacts with the terminals of the battery for the trailer.  The melted everything nonmetal on the bike: cables, breaks, gear shifters, and helmet, which turned into a flaming pile of plastic. Luckily, a driller saw it and put it out before the trailer burned.  What are the odds?
  
  Unfortunately, this has been a microcosm for the project.  Many more things have gone wrong, chiefly the depth-to-bedrock gravity model.  This has escalated cost and messed with our scientific process.
  
  All and all, it is a good job.  I am challenged daily, and I am learning a ton.  The field season will probably be done by the end of August.
  
  
  
  One of the things that makes it all worth while is the area.  It is stunning in places.  This is NP material for sure.  The picture above is my new favorite mountain, Notch Peak of the House Range (famous for Trilobites).  It is a 2000′ drop at the top, and I’d really like to hike up there to see that.
  
  P.S. Doesn’t the cloud in the first pic look like a ship?
  
  

  • 8:12 pm
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