Geological Engineering Commons^™

Paleomagnetic Evidence For Modern-Like Plate Motion Velocities At 3.2 Ga, Alec R. Brenner, Roger R. Fu, David A.D. Evans, Aleksey V. Smirnov, Raisa Trubko, Ian R. Rose

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

The mode and rates of tectonic processes and lithospheric growth during the Archean [4.0 to 2.5 billion years (Ga) ago] are subjects of considerable debate. Paleomagnetism may contribute to the discussion by quantifying past plate velocities. We report a paleomagnetic pole for the ~3180 million year (Ma) old Honeyeater Basalt of the East Pilbara Craton, Western Australia, supported by a positive fold test and micromagnetic imaging. Comparison of the 44°±15° Honeyeater Basalt paleolatitude with previously reported paleolatitudes requires that the average latitudinal drift rate of the East Pilbara was ≥2.5 cm/year during the ~170 Ma preceding 3180 Ma ago, a …

The Evolution Of The Southeastern North American Margin From Integrated Analyses Of Potential Field Data: Continent-Continent Collision And Rifting, Patrick D. Duff

Theses and Dissertations

The southeastern North American margin (SENAM) is one of the world’s oldest intact passive margins, containing the ancient southern Appalachian Mountains, the South Georgia Rift (SGR), and the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP).

Potential field data is used in combination with seismic imaging, borehole data, and surface geology to better constrain the lithospheric configuration created by Appalachian orogenesis and Atlantic rifting. In combination with filtering techniques, maps and 2D potential field forward models, and Euler inverse modeling are used to illuminate the pre-Cretaceous basement including basement faults, shear zones, and granites in the hinterland of the southern Appalachians, and rift …

Geophysical Study Of Gold Mineralized Zones In The Carolina Terrane Of South Carolina, Saad Saud Alarifi

Theses and Dissertations

T

he goal of this study was to calibrate and test geophysical methods for the detection of geological structural and disseminated sulfides in the area of the four largest gold deposits in the Southern Appalachian of South Carolina. The Coastal plain sediments, vegetation and saprolite covering the mining areas remain the most challenging in this region. The work focused on the calibration of high-resolution gravity, and helicopter electromagnetic (EM) and magnetic data provided by OceanaGold over the Haile and Brewer Mines; then calibrating the regional gravity and aeromagnetic data over the four gold mines in South Carolina. Observed geophysical fields …

Structural Evolution Of La Florida And Guavio Anticlines, Fractures, And Petroleum Systems In A Foreland Fold Belt, Eastern Cordillera Foothills, Colombia, Ziyad Albesher

Theses and Dissertations

Geological structures and petroleum systems associated with La Florida anticline and the Cusiana fault system in the Llanos foothills and the Guavio anticline and the Guaicaramo fault system in the Medina basin were interpreted based on 3D seismic data from La Florida anticline in the foothills, 2D seismic data in the Medina basin and Guavio anticline, well, and surface geology maps. Unlike previous interpretations of the Guavio anticline and Medina basin area, our interpretation shows that thin-skinned thrusting on the Guaicaramo fault preceded thick-skinned basement thrusting. Late Miocene thin-skinned ramp thrusting was followed by a Pliocene thick-skinned fault-bend fold ramping …

Prediction Of Tunnel Wall Convergences For Natm Tunnels Which Are Excavated In Weak-To-Fair-Quality Rock Masses Using Decision-Tree Technique And Rock Mass Strength Parameters, Özgür Satici, Tamer Topal

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Tunnel wall convergences should be predicted before the excavation and should be determined accurately in order to ensure safe and economic tunnel excavation media. For this to be possible, rock mass behaviors in the tunnel should also be estimated prior to excavation. This could be ensured by site investigation studies, numerical models and predictive statistics. In this study, the development of convergences during a tunnel excavation in Turkey, excavated by NATM technique, was evaluated by using statistical prediction techniques for weak-to-fair-quality rock masses. For this aim, actual tunnel wall convergence data and rock mass strength parameters were used. For prediction …

Nadir And Oblique Uav Photogrammetry Techniques For Quantitative Rock Fall Evaluation In The Rimrocks Of South-Central Montana, Micah Gregory-Lederer

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

As our cities expand into geologically sensitive areas across the greater Rocky Mountain region and beyond, quantitative methods of assessment are increasingly critical for the development of evidence-based alternatives to avoid or mitigate geologic hazards. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) photogrammetry can improve these geologic investigations by enabling remote visual inspection, measurement, and spatial analysis while eliminating many of the physical access limitations that contribute to field sampling bias and human error. UAV photogrammetry technology was employed to evaluate fragmental rock fall hazards at two locations in the Rimrocks region of south-central Montana, Zimmerman Trail Road and Phipps Park. At these …

Identified Gold Nanoforms In Geogenic And Technogenic Mineral Raw Material, A.E. Vorobev, U.F. Nasirov, К.А Vorobev

Gorniy vestnik Uzbekistana

The main forms of nanoparticles of gold are considered, specification of its main types is given (colloidal, cluster, etc.), factors of its losses at enrichment are described.

Petrology, Physicochemical And Thermal Analyses Of Selected Cretaceous Coals From The Benue Trough Basin In Nigeria, S. A. Akinyemi, O. F. Adebayo, B. B. Nyakuma, A. K. Adegoke, O. A. Aturamu, O. A. Olaolorun, A. Adetunji, James C. Hower, Madison M. Hood, A. Jauro

Center for Applied Energy Research Faculty and Staff Publications

Abundant coal resources that were previously neglected due to a crude oil boom need revitalisation and integration into the national electricity mix to address the energy demands of the Nigerian population. Selected coal samples from the Benue Trough sedimentary basin in Nigeria were examined by various techniques, including proximate and ultimate analyses, organic petrography, Fourier transform infrared ray spectroscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis. Based on vitrinite reflectance, the Lafia-Obi (OLB), Garin Maiganga (GMG), Imiegba (IMG), and Okaba (OKB) coals are classified as subbituminous, while the Lamja1 (LMJ1), Lamja2 (LMJ2) and Chikila (CHK) coals are high volatile B bituminous. The Enugu (ENG) …

Mass Spectrometric Calibration For Real -Time Hydrocarbon Detection, Makuachukwu Mbaegbu

LSU Master's Theses

Determining gas compositions from live well fluids on a drilling rig is critical for real time formation evaluation. However, development and utilization of a reliable mass spectrometric method to accurately characterize these live well fluids is always a challenging issue because of lack of a robust, quick and effectively selective instrument and method. The primary goal of this research is to understand reasons of such discrepancies in results between “good” spectra, and “poor” ones. The objectives are thus to identify the detection issues, calibrate and QA/QC the instruments, and analyze the results in lab settings. In this study, we used …

A Flood Risk Management Program Of Wadi Baysh Dam On The Downstream Area: An Integration Of Hydrologic And Hydraulic Models, Jizan Region, Ksa, Mazen M. Abu-Abdullah, Ahmed M. Youssef, Norbert H. Maerz, Emad Abu-Alfadail, Hasan M. Al-Harbi, Nasser S. Al-Saadi

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

For public safety, especially for people who dwell in the valley that is located downstream of a dam site, as well as the protection of economic and environmental resources, risk management programs are urgently required all over the world. Despite the high safety standards of dams because of improved engineering and excellent construction in recent times, a zero-risk guarantee is not possible, and accidents can happen, triggered by natural hazards, human actions, or just because the dam is aging. In addition to that is the impact of potential climate change, which may not have been taken into account in the …

Load-Balancing Rendezvous Approach For Mobility-Enabled Adaptive Energy-Efficient Data Collection In Wsns, Jian Zhang, Jian Tang, Zhonghui Wang, Feng Wang, Gang Yu

Faculty and Student Publications

Copyright © 2020 KSII The tradeoff between energy conservation and traffic balancing is a dilemma problem in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). By analyzing the intrinsic relationship between cluster properties and long distance transmission energy consumption, we characterize three node sets of the cluster as a theoretical foundation to enhance high performance of WSNs, and propose optimal solutions by introducing rendezvous and Mobile Elements (MEs) to optimize energy consumption for prolonging the lifetime of WSNs. First, we exploit an approximate method based on the transmission distance from the different node to an ME to select suboptimal Rendezvous Point (RP) on the …

Revisiting Lightweight Encryption For Iot Applications: Error Performance And Throughput In Wireless Fading Channels With And Without Coding, Yazid M. Khattabi, Mustafa M. Matalgah, Mohammed M. Olama

Faculty and Student Publications

© 2013 IEEE. Employing heavy conventional encryption algorithms in communications suffers from added overhead and processing time delay; and in wireless communications, in particular, suffers from severe performance deterioration (avalanche effect) due to fading. Consequently, a tremendous reduction in data throughput and increase in complexity and time delay may occur especially when information traverse resource-limited devices as in Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. To overcome these drawbacks, efficient lightweight encryption algorithms have been recently proposed in literature. One of those, that is of particular interest, requires using conventional encryption only for the first block of data in a given frame being transmitted. …

Cooperative Relay Selection For Load Balancing With Mobility In Hierarchical Wsns: A Multi-Armed Bandit Approach, Jian Zhang, Jian Tang, Feng Wang

Faculty and Student Publications

© 2013 IEEE. Energy efficiency is the major concern in hierarchical wireless sensor networks(WSNs), where the major energy consumption originates from radios for communication. Due to notable energy expenditure of long-range transmission for cluster members and data aggregation for Cluster Head (CH), saving and balancing energy consumption is a tricky challenge in WSNs. In this paper, we design a CH selection mechanism with a mobile sink (MS) while proposing relay selection algorithms with multi-user multi-armed bandit (UM-MAB) to solve the problem of energy efficiency. According to the definition of node density and residual energy, we propose a conception referred to …

Deep Direct Use Geothermal Energy In The North Dakota Clean Energy Transition Strategy, Al Thibeault, Moones Alamooti, Nnaemeka Ngobidi, Will Gosnold

Geology and Geological Engineering Faculty Publications

The geothermal heat in the Williston Basin is an energy giant that can provide sustainable, renewable, and ecologically sound heat and power for the state of North Dakota (ND). We have known of this resource for decades, but development has been delayed for reasons which can be summed as economic competition from existing fossil fuel energy sources. With the “seismic” shock of the Covid-19 pandemic reverberating through the state’s carbon-centric economy, the timing is ideal for acting quickly to develop this energy resource.

Coincidentally, the State Energy Research Center (SERC) within the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC), has recently …

Timcc: On Data Freshness In Privacy-Preserving Incentive Mechanism Design For Continuous Crowdsensing Using Reverse Auction, Xiaoqiang Ma, Weiwei Deng, Feng Wang, Menglan Hu, Fei Chen, Mohammad Mehedi Hassan

Faculty and Student Publications

© 2013 IEEE. As an emerging paradigm that leverages the wisdom and efforts of the crowd, mobile crowdsensing has shown its great potential to collect distributed data. The crowd may incur such costs and risks as energy consumption, memory consumption, and privacy leakage when performing various tasks, so they may not be willing to participate in crowdsensing tasks unless they are well-paid. Hence, a proper privacy-preserving incentive mechanism is of great significance to motivate users to join, which has attracted a lot of research efforts. Most of the existing works regard tasks as one-shot tasks, which may not work very …

Proceedings Of The 2020 Undergraduate Research Conference, Ryan C. Winters, Baylee E. Guillory, Baton Rouge Community College, Grambling State University, Louisiana College, Louisiana State University, Mcneese State University, Northwestern State University Of Louisiana, Southern University And A&M College, University Of Louisiana At Lafayette

Advance: Student Research Experience

Proceedings of the 2020 Undergraduate Research Conference, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, November 9-10, 2020.

Geotechnical Engineering: Particle Size Distribution Of Layered Glacial Lake Columbia And Ice Age Flood Deposits In Latah Valley, Spokane, Wa, Aaron Cleveland, Kassie Allen

2020 Symposium Posters

We collected samples from the Latah Valley in Spokane, WA, of Missoula Flood deposits interbedded with Glacial Lake Columbia Sediments. We conducted tests on these soils according to ASTM standards. We performed Specific Gravity tests according to ASTM D854, and determined particle size distribution for these soils by conducting sieve and hydrometer analyses according to ASTM D422. We then plotted these data to create particle size distribution curves. Specific Gravities for the all of the samples collected range from 2.36 to 2.67. The flood deposits are dominated by coarse sand and gravel and the Glacial Lake Columbia deposits are dominated …

The Potential Of Gold Mine Development Project : A Case Study Of Chifunde District In Mozambique, Sara Mario Mabecuane

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This research presents the results of the gold exploration activities developed in the district of Chifunde, Province of Tete in Mozambique. The works showed that in the study area there are two types of deposits which are primary and secondary deposits. There was clear evidence that they have undergone high-grade metamorphism of greenschist due to the grenade occurrences in hornblende in the form of porphyroblast which indicated a high probability of gold occurrence inside amphibolic schist. The results of the SGS laboratory revealed that all samples collected in the area contained gold ranging from 1 to 2,500 ppb, whereas in …

Ambient Noise Seismic Interferometry Through Surface Seismic Data Acquisition Vs Zero-Offset Vertical Seismic Profiling (Vsp), Erdi Apatay

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Ambient noise seismic interferometry (ANSI) is a method that uses passive noise created by unknown sources such as local or teleseismic earthquakes, waves, wind, fracturing and fault movement in a reservoir to obtain an image of subsurface. ANSI has been used in some various disciplines, including earthquake engineering, time-lapse monitoring, borehole seismology and seismic exploration for years. Compared to conventional active seismic surveys, it is advantageous in terms of cost-efficiency as no active source such dynamite or vibroseis is used. Although many promising results have been obtained from surface wave ANSI, body wave ANSI is still challenging. Such a challenge …

Physical Modeling Of The Krauklis Waves: Insights From Two Experimental Apparatuses, Haitao Cao

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Fractures play an important role in the geological related processes such as hydraulic fracturing, water-water disposal, and volcanic earthquake. Seismic waves can provide useful information from fractures at a relatively low cost. In particular, the acoustic property of fractures containing magmatic or hydrothermal fluids can provide useful information about the fracture size and the fluid composition within the fracture. For instance, in volcanology, the resonant frequency of long-period events that are linked to crack interface waves is used to obtain fluid properties of cracks in magmatic systems. However, in order to rely on seismic data, they should be precisely characterized …

Using Geothermal Energy To Reduce Oil Production Costs, Will Gosnold, Mark Ballesteros, Dongmei Wang, Josh Crowell

Geology and Geological Engineering Faculty Publications

The economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the oil industry has been devastating. The decline in demand and price collapse have been particularly disruptive for shale oil extraction which is inherently more expensive than conventional operations. Survival and continuing operations will depend partly on reducing operating costs, and a ubiquitous and substantial cost in oil production is electrical power used primarily for pumping the wells. The Bakken in North Dakota play is particularly vulnerable because there is not an adequate electrical grid in the region. Many Bakken fields rely on generators burning propane, gasoline or diesel fuel at costs …

A Relook At Canada’S Western Canada Sedimentary Basin For Power Generation And Direct-Use Energy Production, Catherine Hickson, Katie Huang, Darrell Cotterill, Will Gosnold, Dick Benoit

Geology and Geological Engineering Faculty Publications

The Alberta No. 1 Project, under the terms of Canada’s Federal government’s Emerging Renewable Power Program (ERPP), must produce 5MWe net. The goal of this study was to identify areas where three essential constraining conditions overlap; (1) the temperature gradient is sufficiently high that 120°C brines at depths of 4,500m or less are potentially available, (2) there are formations at the depths targeted with known high fluid flows, and (3) there is adequate existing infrastructure that supports low-cost power grid connection as well as a direct use application. A fluid temperature of at least 120^oC is needed to …

Imaging In Karst Terrain Using The Electrical Resistivity Tomography (Ert) And Multi-Channel Analysis Of Surface Waves (Masw) Methods, Hassan Abdullah Alzahrani

Doctoral Dissertations

"Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) and Multi-channel Analysis of Surface Waves (MASW) methods were used to image the subsurface in karst terrain in the southeast of Missouri. A SuperSting R8 system was used to acquire the ERT profiles; a multi-channel engineering seismograph was used to acquire the MASW data. The latter data were used to constrain and verify the ERT interpreted depth to top-of-rock and soil thickness. The ERT data were used to delineate the soil/rock interface and to identify zones of anomalously high moisture content within the bedrock.

The primary objective of the research was to determine the cause of …

Developing Innovative Spectral And Machine Learning Methods For Mineral And Lithological Classification Using Multi-Sensor Datasets, Chandan Kumar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The sustainable exploration of mineral resources plays a significant role in the economic development of any nation. The lithological maps and surface mineral distribution can be vital baseline data to narrow down the geochemical and geophysical analysis potential areas. This study developed innovative spectral and Machine Learning (ML) methods for mineral and lithological classification. Multi-sensor datasets such as Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer-Next Generation (AVIRIS-NG), Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), Advanced Land Observing (ALOS) Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR), Sentinel-1, and Digital Elevation Model (DEM) were utilized. The study mapped the hydrothermal alteration minerals derived …

The Overexploitation Of The Valle De Querétaro Aquifer And Its Impact In Small Peri-Urban Communities, Querétaro, México, Kelsey Kirkland

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Valle de Querétaro Aquifer is the only viable local water source satisfying the domestic, agricultural, and industrial water needs of the Querétaro Valley. Severe depletion of the groundwater source has had significant consequences throughout the region, especially in the peri-urban communities of Santo Niño de Praga, Tlacote el Bajo, and La Palma. Historically, residents depended on aquifer-fed freshwater springs (known as Los Tajos) to meet their basic and productive needs. Spring production ceased between 10 and 15 ago and investigating the causes formed the basis of this research.

Analysis of available qualitative and quantitative data was used to identify …

Rain Generated Lahars Prior To The 2018 Catastrophic Eruption Of Fuego Volcano, Guatemala, Claudia Buondonno

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Fuego volcano is one of the most active and hazardous volcanoes in the world. It is located in the northern part of the Central American Volcanic Arc in Guatemala and its activity can be characterized by long term, low-level background activity, and sporadic larger explosive eruptions. Its historical observations of eruptions date back to 1531, but it has been erupting vigorously since 2002 with major activity throughout 2018, producing three main eruptions in February, June and November. Its almost persistent activity generates major ashfalls, pyroclastic flows, lava flows; when heavy rains mobilize its deposits, they can form damaging lahars. Phenomena, …

Comparative Study Of Gross Split And Cost Recovery Production Sharing Contracts In Indonesia, Mohammad Ubaidillah

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

In upstream oil and gas business, Indonesian has introduced Production Sharing Contract Cost Recovery (PSC CR) in 1966 and still implementing that fiscal system until nowadays. In January 2017, The Indonesian Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR or ESDM) introduce new PSC system called Production Sharing Contract Gross Split (PSC GS) following with three amendments until 2019. Ministries believe this new Fiscal regime can attract more investor to invest Oil & Gas business in Indonesia by delivering three main values which are certainty, efficiency, and simplicity policies. This study evaluates and compares the financial aspect of new Indonesian fiscal …

Using Ai And Machine Learning To Indicate Shale Anisotropy And Assist In Completions Design, Cole E. Palmer

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Operating companies in the unconventional Marcellus shale play have all faced a similar and problematic issue, while attempting to produce natural gas over the last decade. Companies have quickly realized that not every perforation along their horizontal wells are producing gas. In fact, producing perforations are only ranging from 15%-70% of the total perforations along the horizontal wellbore [1]. This unexplained issue results in millions of dollars in lost revenue per well, in addition to the sunk cost of paying for completions that are not actually yielding any produced gas.

What is causing these perforations to have no produced gas? …

Soil Fatigue From Induced Seismicity, Merissa L. Zuzulock, Oliver Denzil S. Taylor, Norbert H. Maerz

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Induced seismicity and the effects on civil engineering systems are not completely understood and infrequently studied. One specific area that is not well known is soil fatigue which includes factors such as understanding the natural conditions of the subsurface as well as operational parameters under short duration impulse loads. With the increase of Geo induced seismic activity, soil fatigue becomes of greater concern to structures in the vicinity of this seismic load. The foundations of these structures can be affected by impulse loads which can ultimately cause failure. The lack of quantitative data puts the reliability of these civil engineering …

Data Analytics Of Natural Gas Injection Enhanced Oil Recovery For Unconventional Reservoirs, Ali Waqar

Masters Theses

"Unconventional Enhanced Oil recovery, via the injection of natural gas has attracted great attention, as studies and projects have shown to be promising. An overview of pertinent studies has been carried out. Core Scale Laboratory Experiments, Core Scale Simulation, Field Scale simulation and pilot projects are analyzed. Data is collected for Core, Reservoir, Operational, and recovery information. Thereafter, Data analysis techniques are applied to identify data ranges, distributions, trends, relationships, and to eventually reach conclusions.

Huff and Puff injection is the preferred mode of injection, delivering most promising results for unconventional reservoirs. Across all the studies, with increase in amount …