Full-Day Course at the 2015 AEG Annual Meeting: Getting to the Core!!

Thanks to all of the 2015 AEG Annual Meeting attendees in Pittsburgh!  It was a fun and fruitful meeting with a grand finale ending from teaching a full-day day short course dedicated to Characterization of Rock Core and Borehole Conditions!

Organized by Gary Rogers from Schnabel Engineering with support from myself and John Stowell at Mt. Sopris Instruments and Mike Need at Ruen Drilling, the course gave insights to a spectrum of applications in rock coring and borehole tools.

The course was indeed unique because it was like a merging of two universes: geotechnical and hydrogeologic.  Project objectives differ between the two disciplines which may be over-generalized as "bulk strength and rock mass stability" for geotechnical projects and "ground water movement" for hydrogeologic projects.  Each application share similar approaches, terminology and tools, but there is an obvious separation of background, tradition, and application.  I enjoyed learning new attributes about how RQD applies to rock strength that will soon be incorporated in the FIELD GUIDE FOR ROCK CORE LOGGING AND FRACTURE ANALYSIS.

Box of rock core used for course exercises.  Thank you to Gary Rogers and others at Schnabel Engineering for preparing the cores and answer sheets as teaching tools for a truly meaningful learning experience. 

Thank you to the course participants.  You made the course fun and memorable for the instructors...and equally important, your input during discussion enriched the entire course experience.   It is always amazing to me whenever we teach a MidwestGeo course (and AEG course in this case) to learn about the powerful experience that is present in the classroom and the wonderful personal pride people have in their work.  I tip my hat to you.  -Dan