Geological Society of America National Meeting in Minneapolis Oct 2011

GSA was fun!   The massive Minneapolis Convention Center was packed from wall to wall with people, presentations and posters.  Midwest GeoSciences Group was there in the midst of it all!

Busy Days at GSA (Keegan and Joe Julik pictured)

One of the many event highlights was to see so many geoscientists wearing their GeoMan or GeoWoman shirts in their "sartorial splendor" (thanks to Jim Butler for that wondrous descriptor!) 

Cait and Sean from Northern Illinois University Go Huskies!

GeoWoman Liliana's smile speaks for itself

Even the SuperHero GeoMan Thomas was unleashed at GSA! Thomas and Keegan looking great!

GeoMan Austin sporting the Hi-Vis Safety T during Day Two. If we were outside, you could easily see how he is Outstanding in the Field!

Thank you to all the GSA organizers and sponsors for hosting a world-class conference event.  GSA is like a family reunion in so many ways, but with too many family members to connect with in just a few days.  If we missed you, you're invited to send us an email at dan@midwestgeo.com and we are glad to send you a 2012 catalog with our latest offerings!

2011 Melbourne, Cairns and Sydney

Ken Bradbury and Maureen Muldoon led the teaching during our 2011 course: Improving Hydrogeologic Analysis of Fractured Bedrock Systems.   Arriving in Melbourne at the end of July, we had the privilege of meeting and teaching a wonderful group of scientists and engineers facing the same common ground water issues we face in the United States.

Hydrogeologic site characterization in the fractured basalts across Victoria pose some unique challenges but our friend and colleague, Tami Weaver, PhD, (URS Corporation, Melbourne) shed light on technical resources and references that outlined a meaningful process to tackle such a seemingly impossible mission.

Thank you to our friends at ACLCA for graciously hosting us in Australia again.  We are inspired by your hospitality and enthusiasm along with the course attendees who travel from across Australia and demonstrate their leadership among these challenging technical disciplines.

Maureen Muldoon at Ayers Rock which is located near the geographic center of Australia and made of Arkosic Sandstone.

Ken Bradbury (with his wife, Kari, in the background) snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef and greeting one of the many, many fish species that are often only an arms length away.

Live Webinars vs. Recorded Webinars

Webinars are educational seminars available online.  Live Webinars are taught live by an instructor who receives participants real-time questions using a chat system on the computer screen.  Each Live Webinar is recorded and now available through the WEBINAR ARCHIVES at Midwest GeoSciences Group.

Just click on the link showing the Members Only Section located online at our homepage, midwestgeo.com and then choose your favorite webinar topic from list of recorded sessions.   A wide variety of webinar subjects are available now and more are being added all the time.

Watch the session like you’re in a classroom and listen to internationally-recognized instructors who specialize in each of their topics.  Submerse yourself in these 90-minute educational experiences and gain insights that are found no where else on the web. 

Recorded Webinars offer many benefits besides being available on demand, 27/7.  They simulate classroom sessions encapsulated in an easy-to-access online forum.  Some other benefits include:

1. Learn from recognized experts in the field
2. Improve your personal and professional skills and efficiencies
3. Learn to solve hydrogeologic, environmental and engineering problems we commonly face as professionals
4. Bring added-value to your projects and continue to build your career.
5. You can control the webinar progress or let it run automatically.  You have the ability to immediately repeat segments using a control slider, similar to YouTube.
6. Order Three Webinars and Receive Three More for Free!  Your Membership tracks both your paid and free Webinars automatically!

Not only can you experience the webinar alone or in a group, but every 90-minute webinar is equivalent to one and a half Professional Development Hours.  Each webinar includes downloadable handouts consisting of the Session Slides and a Record of Attendance Form.  Record of Attendance Forms may be used for documenting yours and your colleague’s attendance… in case you have licensure requirements for continuing education units. 

Experience webinars right on your personal computer or broadcast it in your conference room - choosing either a Live Webinar or a Recorded Webinar - both allowing an unlimited number of colleagues for no extra charge.

2011 University of Wisconsin: Rock Cores, Flow Meters and Models

The University of Wisconsin Madison is beautiful all year but my favorite season to be on campus is summertime.  Participants during our 2011 course "IMPROVING THE HYDROGEOLOGIC ANALYSIS OF FRACTURED BEDROCK SYSTEMS" indicated they enjoyed it too along with the on-campus fun.  Anyone who is familiar with the campus understands the uniqueness of State Street that connects the University and State Capitol.  We were aware of the daily (history-making) protests happening at the Capitol during our evening walks after class on State Street - which made our experience uniquely memorable.

The 3-day course takes advantage of the excellent facilities in Madison ranging from the state-of-the-art on-campus classroom auditorium, the extensive rock core library in Mt. Horeb and access to bedrock exposures and the fantastic field site with a variety of wells and downhole technologies.   The exercises range from practicing our rock core logging skills to FLUTe sampling to using the a host of dynamic borehole flow meters.  The 20-sec video below shows the rock core logging exercises:

Participants travel globally for this course with some travelling this year as far as the Western Cape of South Africa.   We are honored to have the privilege of bringing our educational experiences to people.  We enjoy meeting participants with such a wide variety of experiences, backgrounds and originating from such diverse geographic distributions.  Thank you to those who joined us in Madison for this fun and unique course!! 

Solid "H(o) Slug" .....what is it?

Pronounced:  H naught slug

The Solid H(o) Slug™ is a traditional solid slug that is designed to yield a pre-estimated initial displacement during a slug test. 

It's a new item available only through Midwest GeoSciences Group.  The H(o) Slug may ordered in either teflon or PVC.  

Calculated initial displacement is represented by "H(o)*" where H is the calculated distance of instanteous change at time zero (o) in water level created by the the slug.  "H(o)" is the measured initial displacement.  It is important to compare calculated H(o)* with measured H(o) as part of the QA/QC of the slug test for checking the reliability of test data.

The 60-sec video below shows initial displacement occurring within a two-inch diamter well using the H(o) Slug for a one-foot initial displacement.  Note how the water level changes by 1 foot after dropping the slug mimicing the initial displacement during a falling head slug test.

The H(o) Slug is available now at http://www.midwestgeo.com/ for both english and metric units:
12 in, 18 in and 24 in  --or--  30cm, 45cm, 60cm. 

Learn why slug testing with different initial displacements is very important and how normalizing the data can create appreciable data analysis efficiences using the FIELD GUIDE FOR SLUG TESTING AND DATA ANALYSIS.

2011 Pneumatic Hi-K Slug

Check out the Hi-K Slug !! The 2013 Pneumatic Hi-K™ Slug uses air pressure from a hand-held pump to lower the water level and the easy-to-use valve releases the pressure immediately to dramatically improve test results!

2013 Pneumatic Hi-K Slug

View more presentations from DanielKelleher.

Five Year Milestone @ In-Situ, Inc.

Thank you to In-Situ, Inc for hosting us for the past five years to conduct Aquifer Testing for Improving Hydrogeologic Analysis Featuring AQTESOLV and the In-Situ Level TROLL. It was a wonderful milestone to reach together and we appreciate the opportunity to conduct this unique educational experience at your headquarters in Fort Collins, Colorado allowing full access to your world-class facility.

Thank you to the course attendees too.  We hope to exceed your expectations every time by truly teaching meaningful concepts, field methods and data analysis strategies.    It has been a privilege to meet all of you and hear your stories too from unique field experiences to "implausible" data sets. 

The course instructors (Jim Butler and Glenn Duffield) and I don't take your attendance for granted and we appreciate your dedication and enthusiasm for aquifer testing.  We realize the challenges you face because we face them too during our own slug testing and pumping test projects.  Together, I suspect we have provided our clients, employers and taxpayers meaningful solutions to those common challenges.  We applaud you, the course attendees....plus we thank In-Situ, Inc. for making it happen.

 Jim Butler shown kicking off the aquifer testing course on 05 October 2010.

Toronto Till Commandos

Sedimentary successions tell a story when soil core samples are placed from end-to-end forming a continuous sequence of the deposits.   For our course in Toronto, we use tables for placing the continuous core which is much easier for rapid and close evaluation.

 

Our friends from both GroundTech Solutions (GeoProbe Systems distributor) and Boart Longyear Company continuously sampled multiple deep soil cores for our field exercises during the 2-day course Improving the Description and Characterization of Glacial Successions.  The weather was great and the sedimentary sequence was perfect for teaching how sediments and their associated geotechnical and hydraulic properties are ultimately controlled by depositional environments - the sole independent variable.   Once we built the geologic framework from the soil cores, we could confidently take steps toward taking the mystery out of the subsurface and understand ground water occurence and movement applied to both environmental and engineering projects.

Dr's. Tim Kemmis and Carolyn Eyles taught the majority of the course with assistance from Dr. Kelsey MacCormack and me, Dan Kelleher.  Tim and Carolyn are possibly the most two qualified living glacial sedimentologists to teach this course based on course application and context - it has been a personal goal for many years to have them team up to teach this important course.  Kelsey MacCormack is fearlessly demystifying both reliability and (un)certainty in 3D geologic model data sets which I suspect most professionals will embrace since anyone dealing with modeling has faced the problematic issue of unevenly weighted confidence in data sets.

Attendee experience was wide ranging from a few non-technical staff to dedicated "Till Commandos" (an endearing name I'm borrowing from the Midwest Friends of the Pleistocene).  The majority of attendees were from across Canada with most driving from locations with Ontario.  The US contingent had a strong attendance too, with some from non-glaciated states!

Its gratifying to watch the rapid improvement of attendees both  "reading the story" the deposits are telling plus describing the sequence in that manner.  I believe everyone at the end of the course was efficiently characterizing the sequence using complete, accurate and credible descriptions plus recognizing and understanding the meaning and context of each subsurface unit.    Their personal pride and achievement bodes well for our industry as a whole.

Down Under 2010: Two Ways

Australian pride and honor abounds. MidwestGeo had the privilege in March to conduct a course in Melbourne with 60 attendees traveling from across the continent and New Zealand too.   It was our honor to have the opportunity to meet the attendees and work shoulder-to-shoulder with them during the 3-day educational experience.

This year's course was dedicated to Advanced Aquifer Testing Techniques taught by Jim Butler and Glenn Duffield.  Jim and Glenn are fun instructors in the classroom and out of it too (that's Peter Gringinger and Susan pictured with the Dynamic Duo, Jim and Glenn - showing off biceps).

One of the unexpected surprises during the visit to Melbourne was a International Invitational Track Meet located only a few blocks from our downtown hotel.  Thankfully Jim Butler brought this event to my attention during breakfast on the day of the Meet and I was able to attend that evening.

The reason for my unbridled excitement was to watch the pole vault event featuring Steve Hooker who is the 2008 Bejing Olympic Gold Medalist and the current Olympic Record Holder (and from Australia).   What seems like now a lifetime ago, I once found a small bit of success pole vaulting but I never stopped admiring those athletes, especially the world class men and women pole vaulters.  It was another honor for me to briefly meet Steve Hooker after the Meet where is final clearance was his opening height (5.65M / 18'7").

Post-course activities landed us at the Great Barrier Reef.  Down under the water was the second way this trip took us there. Snorkeling and underwater exploration among the endless variety of coral and fish was beyond anything I had prepared for the experience.

Thanks to the crew at both the Crowne Plaza in Melbourne and the InterContinental Hotel in Sydney for their special accommodations and attention.  IHG hotels give us yet another reason we look forward to returning.

We are pleased to recommend these hotels:

InterContinental Sydney
(located two blocks from Sydney Opera House)

117 Macquarie Street, Sydney
NSW, 2000, Australia
Phone: +61-2-9253 9000
www.sydney.intercontinental.com

Crown Plaza Melbourne

(located adjacent to the World Trade Center)

1-5 Spencer Street, Melbourne

VIC,  3005, Australia

Phone: +61-3-9648 2776

Field Guide for Slug Testing and Data Analysis

THE FIELD GUIDE FOR SLUG TESTING AND DATA ANALYSIS was released on 30 January 2009 and is proving to be a tool that is changing how hydrogeologists conduct slug tests.

For about 18 months, Jim Butler (Author of The Design, Performance and Analysis of Slug Tests), Glenn Duffield (Author of AQTESOLV software) and I designed and developed this 4-sided field guide. It seems to connect with - not only the field hydrogeologist, but - the experienced hydrogeologist who appreciates the detailed elements for obtaining reliable slug test results using the right approach, tools and analysis solution.

The field guide was a result of listening to and learning from attendees at MidwestGeo aquifer testing courses (2-day or advanced 3-day versions) and recognizing and successfully overcoming problematic conditions. For example, we each occasionally face extreme conditions that may include fractured, low-K or high-K formations causing uncertainty in preparing for, conducting and analyzing slug tests.

During the aquifer testing course, Jim Butler addresses those extreme conditions and clarifies issues that are often confusing when analyzing the data. Both he and Glenn Duffield provide a step-wise procedure for choosing the appropriate solution to analyze slug test data. It was the interaction with course attendees coupled with our own personal experiences that motivated us to create the field guide. I don't believe there is anything else like it.

The field guide captures those most-common elements discussed in the course and provides guidance for the practitioner who needs to think on his/her feet in the field or at the computer. Despite the depth of the field guide, it does not compare with Jim's 250+ page book.

Jim's book is one of those classically applied books that is a must have for any practicing hydrogeologist. Don't take my word for it. If you know slug testing, you know the Bouwer and Rice solution....so take Herman Bouwer's word instead:

Excellent...a significant milestone in slug test technology and, for that matter, groundwater hydrology.
-Herman Bouwer, USDA Water Conservation Laboratory

(Source: http://www.amazon.com/ 2009 editorial review)