Adventures in the field from a "field minion's" perspective :)

Hello!  My name is Ashley Nauer and I am a Master’s student studying geophysics with a concentration in seismology.  I am one of three graduate students from The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) working on the Seismic Source Team for the ENAM project.  The other two students on the team are Felix Ziwu and Afshin Gholamy, both doctoral candidates who also study geophysics.  

UTEP graduate field assistants Ashley Nauer (MS student), Afshin Gholamy (PhD student) and Felix Ziwu (PhD student) at dinner before their first workday in the field.

We drove with our mentor, Galen Kaip, a special research associate also from UTEP in “The Beast” from El Paso, Texas to our final destination in Dunn, North Carolina with our equipment in tow on Thursday, June 4, 2015.  In case you are wondering, the traveling distance of the trip is about 1,811 miles according to Google.  After driving for 2 days and meeting up with Dr. Harder in Georgia to pick-up the main “ingredients” of our supplies, i.e. the explosive materials, we drove the last stretch to Dunn where we settled in our 3^rd hotel-home.  We are about to move into our 7^th hotel-home and it is crazy to think that we have driven through 7 states, 5 to get to where the profile lines are located and 2 to get to the 11 shot holes spread out on the profile lines.   

Filling the cartridges with emulsion.

Placing the filled cartridges carefully back in to the magazines for transport. Inserted photo to the right shows what it looks like inside the magazine.

Home away from home in various hotels for the next few weeks.

We spent Sunday, June 6, 2015 scouting our first 2 shot holes to make sure that the dirt roads in the areas were in good driving conditions for our vehicles as well as for the drillers, who we met the next day.  Most if not all the shot holes are located on private and/or farming land. 

Got wheat?

One of the many dirt roads we drove on to get to the shot holes.

On a typical field day, we would wake up at 6 or 6:30 am, eat breakfast and head out to our first shot hole at about 7:30 am.  Our team would split where Galen would leave with Felix to pick up gravel needed to stem the hole, while Dr. Harder, Afshin and I would leave to pick up the emulsion, boosters, detonators and bags of bentonite needed for the shot hole we were working on that day.  We would eventually meet at the shot hole location and wait for the drillers to finish drilling.  Some holes would take about an hour or 2 to drill, while others would take longer depending on the geologic conditions.  As soon as the driller drilled to a depth of about 60 feet, we would prepare the charges.  After the charges were placed in the hole, we would stem the hole or fill it.  Each charge is about 5 feet in length and the holes are about 70 feet deep.  That means, Afshin, Felix, Galen and I would have to fill the space above the charges in the ground that is about 60 feet by shoveling gravel and sand in to buckets and pouring them into the hole.  It sounds easier said than done, but if you consider our working conditions, you would see that it is hard manual work.  Not only do we drive 30+ miles each day transporting materials to the shot hole, we lift over 200 lb. of different materials working in hot, humid weather out in the field during the summer in the South.  Need I say more? 

Drilling one of the shot holes.

The drillers clearing their equipment, so we could start stemming the hole with gravel.

The dump truck filled with gravel. It would not be a real fieldwork experience without a vehicle getting stuck, now would it?

However, at the end of the day it is all worth it.  Not only to help with the project, but for us students, to learn and observe all we can and putting what we learn in the classroom into action.  Thanks to the hard work, dedication and efforts of the project’s chief scientists and funding received from various sources, we students are fortunate to be here.  

(Post by Ashley Nauer)