Saturday, September 22, 2007

"Bore"hole Surveying

For those uninitiated, who are wondering about the exciting, thrill-a-minute, action-packed life of a geophysicist working in the subarctic, I offer this photo. I suggest that the image portrays the drudgery of the hurry-up-and-wait life that accompanies borehole surveys. The large spool in the center is the kevlar-sheathed, three conductor, 1.2km long cable that we use to lower the probes down the 3 inch diameter hole (you can see the cable heading off diagonally up to the hole casing. The poor sap sitting in the chair is waiting for the receiver to finish collecting the data before lowering the probe 10 meters to the next station. It takes a couple of minutes to read the Z-component, and about 5 minutes or more for the XY. The average depth of holes in Raglan is probably 800 to 850 meters, and we usually survey half the length of the. Meaning that surveying a hole can take anywhere from 6 to 24 hours or more, depending on what happens to go wrong on a particular survey, and if the whole has to be read in more than one section because of risk of collapse. This type of survey has been aptly nicknamed "snorehole".
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Sunday, September 16, 2007

L'Hiver Est Arrivé À Raglan

Well, while Heidi was watching her sister get married on the beach near St. Lawrence, NL (Congrats Beth and Jeff!!!) I understand it was a little on the cool side. However, I ask you to note this picture taken by my helper and new chum, François. We were working yesterday, the 15th of September here in the subarctic, and it was also what we call "on the cool side". The weather trend continued today with more of the same. It actually gave me a rather cozy feeling, kind of like Christmas is around the corner, but I am sure this feeling will pass and I will tire of the wind and snow in short order. I guess I better enjoy it before my brain smartens up and realize I am on the tundra, 1600km from home, and I left my big logans at home....oops.
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Sunday, September 09, 2007

Who's got the ball?

Ashton may have the Chuck-It, but Maggie has the ball...

White Point

Nothing fancy, just us and the boys at White Point beach. Okay, I know Maggie's a girl. Sorry Mags.
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My Nephews

My sister Daphne, her husband Russell and their two boys Spencer and Ashton all came to Newfoundland for a few weeks this summer. They came down Winterland way for a visit and we had a lot of fun hanging out, going to the beach and just visiting. I had never met Ashton before this summer and only met Spencer a couple of years ago. They are beautiful boys, and as you can see, we had no trouble becoming fast friends. I look forward to seeing them again really soon. Hopefully Crone will be doing some work out west in the near future!
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