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USGS Coastal Carolina Project 2003 - Elizabethtown

Coastal Carolina Project 2003 - Elizabethtown
Drilling

Drilling began 8/12/2003 and was completed 8/26/2003.
Well installation completed 8/31/2003.
2004 Drill completed 7/18/2004

The Carolina Continental Margin Drilling Program has held several scientific meetings to locate and determine prioritized list of drill locations where geologic, stratigraphic, and hydrologic data are needed. The Elizabethtown drill site was selected as an area of needed subsurface data. A significant aspect of this particular drill will be the collection of continuous core from the corehole. The Eastern Services section of the Geologic Discipline (GD) will have their core recovery specialists obtaining continuous core from land surface to basement during this drill.

The corehole was drilled from August 12^th to 26^th to 567 feet, which did not reach crystalline (hard rock) basement. A complete suite of open-hole geophysical logs were collected from depth prior to placing the surface casing. A piezometer, or monitoring well, was installed in the Cape Fear Aquifer, which was the deepest aquifer reached.

At a later date additional wells may be drilled to install additional shallow piezometers in the higher aquifers. The screen intervals of these later piezometers will be targeted at the surficial and first confined aquifer.

The July 2004 supplemental drilling session is to define the lower stratigraphic units at this location and to date the stratigraphic units using the fossil record, and to determine the thickness of the aquifers.

Day	Date	Activity	Photos (1)	Total Depth (in ft.)	Unit (2)
These data are provisional, have not been reviewed, and are subject to change.
1	8/10/03 Sunday	End of preparations
2	8/11/03 Monday	On site at 8:30 PM	Morning fog On-site tent
3	8/12/03 Tuesday	Got water; rained out at 3:30 PM (thunder and lightning)	Drilling fluid
4	8/13/03 Wednesday	Drilling began at 12 noon; spud in with 5' set. Morning rain, day was hot and humid Changed to a new, larger bit at the end of the day in order to accommodate an anticipated change in formation	New drill bit Final core of the day	34	Undifferentiated Tertiary
5	8/14/03 Thursday	Borehole geophysical logging of the hole down to 110' both through the drill rod and in the open hole Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary at 41' Hot and humid; afternoon showers	Geologic analyis of core	110	Bladen/Tar Heel Formation Campanian Age
6	8/15/03 Friday	Visitors from UNC-Wilmington Continued pulling continuous core with a mobile wireline drill rig.	Box of core samples Core boxes being labeled	190	Bladen Formation and Black Creek Aquifer
7	8/16/03 Saturday	Visitors from UNC-Pembroke There was a torential downpour Saturday night leaving the entire drill site drenched.	Final core of the day	250	Coachman Formation/Shepards Grove Formation
8	8/17/03 Sunday	The core is geologically logged for lithology and minerology, then boxed. The boxes are then stored on-site.	Extruding the core	315	Black Creek Aquifer; probable Shepards Grove Formation
9	8/18/03 Monday	Transitioning out of the Black Creek Aquifer and now in the upper Cape Fear aquifer, which may not be the Cape Fear Formation. The percent recovery of the core is considered excellent.	Examining the core	375	Upper Cape Fear Aquifer
10	8/19/03 Tuesday	Drilled from 390' to 450'. Core recovered from run 62 was mostly sand with trace amounts of garnet. Run 66 (below 430') had a lens rich in amber and pyritized lignite.	Core section with pyrite	450	Upper Cape Fear Aquifer and upper Cape Fear Formation
11	8/20/03 Wednesday	Drilled from 450 feet to 510 feet which was core runs 68 - 75. A clayey glaconitic sand dominated the early runs with lignite layers up to two inches thick.	Drill rig	510	Lower Cape Fear Aquifer and Formation
12	8/21/03 Thursday	The formation encountered at this depth was not the anticipated phylite.		540	Unnamed marine sediment below Lower Cape Fear Formation
13	8/22/03 Friday	A core from the early Cretaceous, consisting of weathered sediment of silty clay was pulled from the bottom. A complete sweep of open-hole geophysical logs were made.		567 *	Below Cape Fear Aquifer and Formation
14	8/23/03 Saturday	BOH - Bottom of hole reached, depth of 567 feet, this is not crystalline (hard rock) basement.
15	8/24/03 Sunday	Well installation in Cape Fear Aquifer The casing extends from 5 feet above land surface to a depth of 420 feet; the aquifer is sandpacked from 375 feet to 420 feet; the screen is from 385 feet to 410 feet with a 10 foot tail or sump.	Casing Casing down		Cape Fear Formation
16	8/25/03 Monday	Completed well installation Lowered drill tower and moved rig off well	Lowering boom Rig off well
17	8/26/03 Tuesday	Packed drill equipment for travel back to Reston, VA, crew left site Initial water level measurement, depth to water 91.85"	Morning pack
18	8/27/03 Wednesday	GPS in site location and elevation
19	8/28/03 Thursday	Transport core to Raleigh
20	8/29/03 Friday	Ballards (protective guard posts) concreted in place (Used 6 40 lb bags of grout.)	Well with ballards
21	8/30/03 Saturday	Measured depth to water and completed installing well-head protection (Used 8 80 lb bags of Quikcrete) Very hot and humid	Water level measurement
22	8/31/03 Sunday	Well installation complete.	Leaving the site

¹ The complete set of drilling photos are available on the 2003 Elizabethtown Photos Page.

² Unit indicates the deepest unit reached in the drilling.

* Drilling completed.