Geo-Environmental Services
OK, this is unashamedly just a pretty picture of a multi-coloured rock core we recovered from a site recently.
We could tell you about the technical difficulties of recovering intact rock cores from interbedded soft and hard rock strata like these. But we’d rather you just enjoy the photo for what it is. Cor, what a beauty as a well known daily newspaper might have said.
For more information regarding our drilling capabilities please contact Angus Gale.
We just loved this photograph. At first glance it looks like the worms from Dune. But actually its the business end of one of our core barrels full of different kinds of rock: chert, flint, river terrace deposits. A nightmare to drill through, but as you can see it’s all in a day’s work for our drill crew.
If you have a drilling requirement at your site and would like to discuss it with us, then please contact Angus Gale.
With warmer weather arriving, we received a timely request from Micasa to assist them with the design and construction of a swimming pool for a residential client. All in a day’s work for our Terrier drill rig, which is particularly suited to this work, having a small footprint and being able to pass through a standard doorway. The only problem: our site team were left imagining taking a refreshing dip in the pool, which won’t be completed for a few months yet.
A recent project in Wales saw us drilling through Coal Measures. We encountered mudstone, ironstone, siltstone, sandstone, claystone and, of course, coal….all in a single day. This didn’t stop us achieving 100% core recovery and 20m+ coring a day, all with full gas monitoring.
For more information or to get a quote for us to drill your site (it doesn’t have to be in Wales!) please contact Angus Gale – 0774 8358304
They say there is a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow.
We aren’t sure our Geoprobe drillrig qualifies as that, but we liked the photo and thought we’d share it.
The nights are drawing in and daylight is at a premium. This can limit the hours available for sitework. Or rather it could until recently. We’ve just completed a four week long refit and refurbishment of our drill rigs. This has included fitting task lighting ensuring that we can work long into the night – or even all night of the job requires it.
For more information please contact Angus Gale – 07748358304
When a client rang and said they needed boreholes in a densely overgrown area, located up a high-sided kerb behind some hedges, we knew we had just the drill rig for the job. After checking for below-ground utilities, we completed seven boreholes locations to 4m depth in a single day. Naturally, we left the site clean and tidy, with a happy client.
The site investigation industry has, traditionally, relied on light cable percussion (generally known as shell and auger) drilling. This is slow, messy and crude providing low quality geotechnical and environmental samples at best. Thankfully, these days it isn’t the only option available to you.
The majority of our general site investigation drilling is done using hollow stem rotary methods. These provide signficantly better quality data with minimal sample disturbance, even in the toughest of conditions. This week we were working at a site underlain by glacial and millstone grit cobbles, sand and terrace gravels in a sandy clay matrix. We drilled five boreholes to their target depth on 8m in one working day – something that might have taken a shell and auger crew a week – minimising the disruption to our client’s business which was able to remain open throughout.
It probably comes as no surprise that it takes a very different skillset and completely different equipment to core through rock as opposed to boring through the sand and clay soils that are more commen near the ground surface.
The correct core bit (i.e. the part of the drill string which cuts the rock) selection is the key to obtaining high quality quality core samples. Each rock type requires a specific core bit to cut it cleanly and efficiently. So, to achieve the best results, we carry a range of different core bits with us at all times. Our drilling crew recently used our T6 coring barrel to core to depths of 25m in a range of geology from conglomerates to slate and everything in between.
So, you might say that coring is not boring. Fact!
Not that kind of protection! We’re talking about cathodic protection of fuel pipes and tanks.
Decommissioning and replacing defunct cathodic protection ground beds requires an element of precision and brute force. Our first job is usually locating the existing beds. This can be no small task on a 30 hectare oil terminal site! The redundant beds were installed over 30 years ago and records are sparse.
We used radio detection methods to accurately locate the old redundant vertical ground beds to the required accuracy of +/-50mm. We need to be that accurate in order to successfully overdrill the beds.
Unusually, on our most recent project, our client asked us to drill through the connecting cables rather than removing them. The cables were isolated by a field engineer prior to us starting work and all our works were carried out under a permit to dig.
To overdrill the existing beds we brought in a shell and auger rig, drilling 350mm boreholes to 5m depth. This effectively decommissioned the existing redundant ground beds to make way for the new ones. With the first stage of the project complete, we are now back on site with our Comacchio rotary rig drilling much deeper boreholes in which we will be installing new anodes. Updates to follow.