GEOL 492/692 - Applied Geophysics
Preparation for Field Exercise

Contents

Additional Resources


Objective and Setting

This spring break we will make a concerted search for hidden southerly strands of the Pyramid Lake Fault south and southeast of Fernley. We will start the first two weekends with reconnaisance gravity, magnetic, electrical, and ReMi profiles radiating down the Fernley Hills. The third weekend will be devoted to high-resolutioin seismic-reflection profiling to verify fault location and character.

Since we are close to home, on each of field day will leave at 7:00 AM from the parking lot behind the LME building, and return there each night, probably about 7:00 PM. Students may bring their own vehicles, but they must still meet us at 7:00 AM behind LME, and they must do so entirely at their own risk.

Each student will not need to bring any camping or cooking equipment for our local work, only daily food and drink. But many items on the personal equipment list are still necessary. Be prepared especially for wildly variable weather conditions.

We may delay our work during fierce storms, but we will have to make up storm days (or for equipment failure) on Sat. April 23 and Sun. April 24. So keep all four field weekends open for now. If in doubt about the weather, come that day at 7:00 AM anyway, and I will be there to let you go home if the weather is too awful.


Assignment

Each team of two or three students will take primary responsibility for one of the 5 types of measurements we will take in the field:
  1. Theodolite: Pancha, Ashcroft
  2. Gravity: McHugh, Muehlberg
  3. Magnetic: Mahoney, Mass
  4. Schlumberger Resistivity: Meadows, Hoerth
  5. Seismic Reflection, Refraction, and ReMi: Rasmussen, Lopez, Delwiche, Boucher
Each team will be responsible for developing a detailed plan for how we will prepare the instruments, conduct the field experiment, and analyze the results. We will coordinate the surveys so everyone gets experience with each of the methods. Teams should settle which survey they want to lead by Tues., March 4.

Guidelines for proposing the survey plans are below. Certain questions need to be answered soon, and preparations begun early. These parts of the plans should be prepared by Mar. 7, and will be reviewed and discussed by the class. Each team should see J. Louie as soon as possible to begin preparations. The remainder of each plan must be finished by Mar. 12, so we can act on the plans during the days before we go in the field Mar. 15.

Finished plans should include complete and detailed checklists of every item that will go to the field, data sheets and/or software disks, instrument operation instructions, maps showing proposed survey locations, and schedules for work by each team. Each team should turn in one set of plans on March 12, which I will evaluate and use to affect your final report grades.

Schedule

ActionDate
Assign survey teamsMar. 4
Seismic team inspects Virginia Ra. site with Ed PharissMar. 3-14
Surveying team participates in Geol 450 exercise, 1-5 PMMar. 6
Review preparation plans/checklistsMar. 7
Turn in and review fieldwork plans/checklistsMar. 12
Complete instrument preparationsMar. 14
Complete field preparationMar. 14
Field work in Virginia Ra.Mar. 15-16
Field work at Lake TahoeMar. 17
ReMi demonstration at UNRMar. 18, 8AM-noon
Field work at Ruby Mts./td>Mar. 19-21
Complete data reduction, copy to allApr. 7
Group presentationsMay 5
Turn in field reports, 5:00 PMMay 13

Designing a Survey Plan

Each team should develop a detailed plan in writing to guide us in mobilizing, performing the fieldwork, and sharing and analyzing the results. In essence, a complete plan would answer all of the questions below. Starred questions need to be answered by Mar. 7. More questions, related to each type of survey, are found in the sections below for the various surveys. Please work with me, other Department faculty, and the other teams to answer the questions, one by one. You aren't expected to be able to answer them all by yourself. The written survey plan will naturally help you write your field report.

Mobilization (all methods)


Fieldwork (all methods)


Interpretation (all methods)

References

Telford et al., our textbook.

Compton, 1962, Manual of Field Geology, chapters 2, 3, 4, 11.

Dobrin and Savit, 1988, Introduction to Geophysical Prospecting, pages 3-8 and as noted below:


SURVEYING

Instrument overseers and information source: John Bell, Geoff Blewitt, Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology Ref: Compton, chapters 6, 7, 8.

GRAVITY

Instrument overseers and information source: R. Karlin, G. Oppliger Ref: Dobrin, pages 498-503, 505-506, 528-535, 547-553, 561-586, 602-604, 613-621.

RESISTIVITY SOUNDING

Instrument overseer and information source: R. Petersen; also G. Oppliger, and Ken Taylor at DRI; . Ref: Dobrin, pages 750-768, 815-831, 833-842.

MAGNETIC

Instrument overseer and information source: G. Oppliger Ref: Dobrin, pages 633-678, 685-710, 723-733.

SEISMIC

Instrument overseers and information source: J. Louie Ref: Dobrin, pages 58-68, 78-90, 450-459, 473-482.