USGS Coastal Carolina Project 2003 - Elizabethtown

Coastal Carolina Project 2003 - Elizabethtown
Drilling Photos

Click on a photo for a larger image

**Site location, pre-drilling**
36K	62K	50K

Setting up the drill site
30K Fog on the first morning of the project, 8/11/03	47K On-site tent
65K Drilling mud, mixed with potable water
Drilling
81K The inner core barrel is attached to the wireline cable on the drill rig. This allows just the bottom ten-foot inner core barrel to be pulled from within the rod without requiring that the stell be removed from the hole. (8/13/2003)	64K Changing the drill bit at the end of the day on Wednesday (8/13/2003) in order to accommodate an anticipated change in formation. The rod (or drill stem) needs to be pulled from the drill hole in order to change drill bits.
76K The new drill bit installed at the end of the day on Wednesday (08/13/2003). Drill bits are designed to cut through different materials. This one will go through both sand and clay at depth.
Cores
85K Using a wireline core rig to collect continuous core; the last core of the day (8/13/03) being extruded into the catcher tray	67K Dr. Rob Weems of the Geologic Discipline conducting a geologic analyis of core (8/14/2003)
63K Box of core samples, labelled and stored on site (8/15/2003)	59K Dr. David Prowell labelling boxes of core samples; geophysical logging van in background (8/15/2003)
57K Saturday 16, August 2003. The final core recovered at the end of the drilling day came from the 240 - 250 foot interval.	39K Extruding the core from the inner barrel (08/17/2003).
69K USGS Geologic Discipline micro-paleontologist Jean Self-Trail exams the mineral content in a lithology sample in order to develop a core description (08/18/2003).	39K Dr. Prowell holding a core section with pyrite (8/19/2003)
79K Comparison of pore water samples from the formation water and the drilling mud. (8/20/2003)
Well installation
75K Moving the casing (8/24/03)	84K Connecting the casing (8/24/03)
57K Casing up (8/24/03)	47K Casing down (8/24/03)
79K Sandpack around screen (8/24/03)	63K The completed well, with ballards (protective guard posts) (8/29/03)
Spectators
50K Huge crowds on the big day (8/24/03)	6.2K Supervising the well installation (08/24/2003).
Drillers leaving the site
64K Lowering the boom (8/25/03)	77K Moving the rig away from the well (08/25/2003).
22K Packing the drill rig in the early morning fog, preparing to return to Reston, VA (8/26/03)
Taking a water level measurement
67K Approaching completed well site to take a depth to water level measurement (8/30/03)	68K View of the unlocked piezometer (monitoring well) with the locked pressure cap (08/30/2003).
68K Piezometer with the pressure cap removed (8/30/03)	61K Open piezometer and tape to measure the depth to water level in the Cape Fear Aquifer (8/30/03)
Site location, post-drilling
57K Leaving the drill site; well visible in the shadows (8/31/03)	65K Final photograph of the drill site as the last person was leaving (2pm, 8/31/03)