Some new work along the southeastern tip of India shows that the Boxing Day Tsunami was rare, but not unprecedented. Now that scientists know what the erosional remnants of a global tsunami event look like when preserved on the beaches of that coast, they can use Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and sediment cores to look for evidence of other events correlated around the Indian Ocean basin, and use optical methods to come up with dates for them. The latest round of work has identified two previous tsunami records at 1080 years ago (+/- 60 years) and 3710 years ago (+/- 200 years). So yes those of us who witnessed this event were indeed present for an event that starts to bridge the gap between human history and the geologic record.
See: (EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, Vol. 91, No. 50, 14-Dec-2010, "Subsurface Images Shed Light on Past Tsunamis in India", Rajesh Nair, Dept. of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology)
Saturday, February 19, 2011
In the News ... Again
In following up the scientific response to the BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill (yes the media tagged it and it will never be the "Cameron BOP spill" or the "Anadarko Joint Venture spill"), there is some real insight from those who deal every day with complex technological ventures. In a pretty good indication that, yes, scientists are the pragmatic lot that we expect and need them to be, I have now come across at least two admissions in technical and scientific and publications that when it comes to huge expensive undertakings like deep offshore drilling, the next spill is not a matter of if, but when.
When the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA)stood up their GeoPlatform website in response to the spill, their CIO was quite candid in noting that they were already planning how the IT infrastructure would have to evolve in order to meet the "next crisis". See:
http://gcn.com/articles/2010/07/15/noaa-cio-kilmavicz.aspx
And Case Western Reserve University has received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study an aerogel material that can soak up eight times its weight in oil, and then be wrung out and re-used. The goal is to lower the cost of the gel so it can be used "during the next big spill".
Those who launch people into space, build high energy physics labs, or even integrate complex software suites, and do it under budgetary constraints, live with a harsh reality. The technicians who are even today, as Paul Carter describes in "This is Not a Drill", designing the "whole fleets of brand new sixth generation, fly by wire cyber rigs ... getting spat out of shipyards all over the world at the moment" ... they know it.
When you push the technology to its limits, sooner or later, something will go wrong.
When the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA)stood up their GeoPlatform website in response to the spill, their CIO was quite candid in noting that they were already planning how the IT infrastructure would have to evolve in order to meet the "next crisis". See:
http://gcn.com/articles/2010/07/15/noaa-cio-kilmavicz.aspx
And Case Western Reserve University has received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study an aerogel material that can soak up eight times its weight in oil, and then be wrung out and re-used. The goal is to lower the cost of the gel so it can be used "during the next big spill".
Those who launch people into space, build high energy physics labs, or even integrate complex software suites, and do it under budgetary constraints, live with a harsh reality. The technicians who are even today, as Paul Carter describes in "This is Not a Drill", designing the "whole fleets of brand new sixth generation, fly by wire cyber rigs ... getting spat out of shipyards all over the world at the moment" ... they know it.
When you push the technology to its limits, sooner or later, something will go wrong.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
How did this trajectory start?
In the book that will eventually trace the course of this particular scientist through the global oilfields, speculatively titled "Hold My Beer and Watch This!", I will undoubtedly have to spend some time explaining how a short intellectual kid from Chicago ended up driving a 27-ton Litton Vibrator Truck in Pecos, Texas. In his book "This is Not a Drill: Just Another Glorious Day in the Oilfield", Paul Carter describes some of the motives that led him to join offshore rig crews; namely wanderlust, camaraderie, and lucrative contracts. Interestingly, these were among the same things listed by Frank "The Irishman" Sheerhan in the book "I Hear you Paint Houses" as reasons for him joining the Mob....
In my case it was not only the prospect of a lucrative job actually using my college degree when the mining business was collapsing around Upper Michigan in the early 1980's, the possibility to work in remote exotic locations (ok, but Pecos?) and knowing I would be working with geoscientists who I already knew to be a friendly and jovial lot, but the fact that at that time, oil companies were actually using some of the spiffiest technological equipment of the times. I mean, we had access to computers!
I could actually submit a seismic processing job from a teletype terminal in Midland, Texas, and have it checked and submitted by a computer operator in The Woodlands outside of Houston the same day. I knew I had picked the right industry when, in the mid 1980's, the U.S. government decided they could help fund the big government labs by finding commercial applications for some of the technology. When Los Alamos in New Mexico went looking for industry customers, one of the first segments they turned to was "Big Oil". I found myself on a trip from Dallas Texas to Albuquerque New Mexico with a delegation of oil and gas technologists to get a first look at what the weapons guys had been doing inside of the top secret walls that housed the Manhattan project in it's day. We didn't get "inside the wall" where they do the real crazy stuff, and our unfortunately Iranian-born Vice President didn't even get that far, his clearance was denied at the gate and he spent the day in the hotel and looking at "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" in the museum. But the conversations we had around the conference table that day were pretty interesting.
"Oh so you want a way to reduce engine noise on a ship so you can listen better to sonic waves? ... yeah we can do that"
"Oh so you would like to be able to run huge 3D process simulation using parallel processing and hierarchical storage of modeling data? ... yeah we can do that"
And when the previously cloistered government scientists from the weapons lab met the oilfield completion engineers working on downhole perforation guns for deep drilling, it got really interesting:
"Oh it would be good if you could direct a shaped explosive charge to blow a precisely oriented hole through thick steel casing from a few miles away? Hell Son, we do that every god-damned day around here! Wanna come out to the range and see it?"
Later in the day I got to walk through what was then one of the largest computers on the planet, the Thinking Machines CM-2 massively parallel hypercube array, and when I say walk through, that's exactly what I mean. You didn't stand and look at this computer, you walked into it! I knew it was big when I saw them wheeling in a standard workstation like the ones we were using at the time to run our 3D visualizations, on a cart, and start to use it to run a backup of just part of the array.
They also had a Cray-2 there, the same model I ran into in the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris when my wife and I visited for our 25th anniversary in 2006. I was later to find out it was not only the same model, but in fact the very same machine I had reverently laid my hand on to feel the chilled water cooling system when it was running simulated nuclear explosion models in New Mexico two decades earlier and an ocean away. Now where else but the oilfield could you make a connection like that?
In my case it was not only the prospect of a lucrative job actually using my college degree when the mining business was collapsing around Upper Michigan in the early 1980's, the possibility to work in remote exotic locations (ok, but Pecos?) and knowing I would be working with geoscientists who I already knew to be a friendly and jovial lot, but the fact that at that time, oil companies were actually using some of the spiffiest technological equipment of the times. I mean, we had access to computers!
I could actually submit a seismic processing job from a teletype terminal in Midland, Texas, and have it checked and submitted by a computer operator in The Woodlands outside of Houston the same day. I knew I had picked the right industry when, in the mid 1980's, the U.S. government decided they could help fund the big government labs by finding commercial applications for some of the technology. When Los Alamos in New Mexico went looking for industry customers, one of the first segments they turned to was "Big Oil". I found myself on a trip from Dallas Texas to Albuquerque New Mexico with a delegation of oil and gas technologists to get a first look at what the weapons guys had been doing inside of the top secret walls that housed the Manhattan project in it's day. We didn't get "inside the wall" where they do the real crazy stuff, and our unfortunately Iranian-born Vice President didn't even get that far, his clearance was denied at the gate and he spent the day in the hotel and looking at "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" in the museum. But the conversations we had around the conference table that day were pretty interesting.
"Oh so you want a way to reduce engine noise on a ship so you can listen better to sonic waves? ... yeah we can do that"
"Oh so you would like to be able to run huge 3D process simulation using parallel processing and hierarchical storage of modeling data? ... yeah we can do that"
And when the previously cloistered government scientists from the weapons lab met the oilfield completion engineers working on downhole perforation guns for deep drilling, it got really interesting:
"Oh it would be good if you could direct a shaped explosive charge to blow a precisely oriented hole through thick steel casing from a few miles away? Hell Son, we do that every god-damned day around here! Wanna come out to the range and see it?"
Later in the day I got to walk through what was then one of the largest computers on the planet, the Thinking Machines CM-2 massively parallel hypercube array, and when I say walk through, that's exactly what I mean. You didn't stand and look at this computer, you walked into it! I knew it was big when I saw them wheeling in a standard workstation like the ones we were using at the time to run our 3D visualizations, on a cart, and start to use it to run a backup of just part of the array.
They also had a Cray-2 there, the same model I ran into in the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris when my wife and I visited for our 25th anniversary in 2006. I was later to find out it was not only the same model, but in fact the very same machine I had reverently laid my hand on to feel the chilled water cooling system when it was running simulated nuclear explosion models in New Mexico two decades earlier and an ocean away. Now where else but the oilfield could you make a connection like that?
Monday, January 3, 2011
Those Pesky Rare Earths
So if the rare earth minerals are so rare, why all the fuss about them? Well actually, the rare earth minerals are named after the elements that they contain, which are primarily within the rare earth series on the periodic table, the lanthanides, elments 57-71, and numbers 21 and 39, Scandium and Yttrium. Despite the name, the elements are actually relatively plentiful in the earth's crust, but economically viable occurrences of the minerals are relatively rare compared to other mineable resources such as copper or iron ores. The real strategic value of the rare earth minerals is in the industrial uses of the elements they contain, which reads like a veritable Who's Who of the devices that allow us to continue as a high-tech society. Consider for example the following sampling of gadgets that depend on rare earth elements for their manufacture:
Aerospace components; mercury-vapor lamps; high-temperature superconductors; microwave filters; high refractive index glass; hydrogen storage; battery-electrodes; camera lenses; catalysts for oil refineries; chemical oxidizing agents; polishing powders; colorings in glass, ceramics and enamels; catalysts for self-cleaning ovens; rare-earth magnets; lasers; carbon arc lighting; glass used in welding goggles; ferrocerium firesteel (flint) products; ceramic capacitors; nuclear batteries; neutron capture materials; masers; phosphors; x-ray tubes; computer memories; fluorescent lamps; vanadium steel; portable X-ray machines; chemical reducing agents; PET Scan detectors.
Now you can understand why China's current 96% control of the export market for these minerals is of concern and why global mining companies are looking to open new sources.
Aerospace components; mercury-vapor lamps; high-temperature superconductors; microwave filters; high refractive index glass; hydrogen storage; battery-electrodes; camera lenses; catalysts for oil refineries; chemical oxidizing agents; polishing powders; colorings in glass, ceramics and enamels; catalysts for self-cleaning ovens; rare-earth magnets; lasers; carbon arc lighting; glass used in welding goggles; ferrocerium firesteel (flint) products; ceramic capacitors; nuclear batteries; neutron capture materials; masers; phosphors; x-ray tubes; computer memories; fluorescent lamps; vanadium steel; portable X-ray machines; chemical reducing agents; PET Scan detectors.
Now you can understand why China's current 96% control of the export market for these minerals is of concern and why global mining companies are looking to open new sources.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
What were those languages?
Since posting my note about the languages used on the Western Australia bus system, TransPerth, I have had a lot of questions from people who didn't recognize several of them.
For those who are interested, here are some details on some of those that may not be familiar to our colleagues in the Western Hemisphere:
Amharic is a Semitic language spoken in North Central Ethiopia.
Dinka is a Nilotic language from Southern Sudan.
Karen is a group of tonal languages spoken by three million people in southern Burma, considered unusual among Tibeto-Burman dialects for not having any Chinese influence.
Kirundi is the Bantu language of 8.7 million Hutu and Tutsi in Burundi, Tanzania, Congo-Kinshasa and Uganda.
Dari is a variety of Persian spoken in Afghanistan.
So what we have here is not only an indication of some of the important groups immigrating to Perth over the centuries, but also in some cases the languages spoken by groups, who when they leave their homeland, march to the nearest ocean, and set sail in a perpendicular course away from the shore, the next significant piece of land they encounter happens to be Western Australia.
For those who are interested, here are some details on some of those that may not be familiar to our colleagues in the Western Hemisphere:
Amharic is a Semitic language spoken in North Central Ethiopia.
Dinka is a Nilotic language from Southern Sudan.
Karen is a group of tonal languages spoken by three million people in southern Burma, considered unusual among Tibeto-Burman dialects for not having any Chinese influence.
Kirundi is the Bantu language of 8.7 million Hutu and Tutsi in Burundi, Tanzania, Congo-Kinshasa and Uganda.
Dari is a variety of Persian spoken in Afghanistan.
So what we have here is not only an indication of some of the important groups immigrating to Perth over the centuries, but also in some cases the languages spoken by groups, who when they leave their homeland, march to the nearest ocean, and set sail in a perpendicular course away from the shore, the next significant piece of land they encounter happens to be Western Australia.
Monday, November 15, 2010
When in Rome...
Here's a handy tip for those of you working in a foreign country, or a different culture. If you want a quick overview of the demographics of the community you are working in, hop on the local public transport, whether it be bus, train, the tram at the international airport, or subway, and notice what languages are represented by the signage and announcements. Very telling.
In Houston, Texas, you are likely to see English, Spanish and Vietnamese. At the KLIA International Airport in Kuala Lumpur, announcements are made in Bahasa, English and Mandarin. On the Quebec subway signs are in French first and only grudgingly in smaller print in English, on the Tokyo train system, Japanese (and tellingly, ONLY Japanese!). The ferry from Helsinki, Finland to Tallinn, Estonia will print tickets in Finnish and Swedish, but not Estonian.
I recently gained some interesting insight into the Western Australia melting pot of cultures when I found myself gazing at the information placard on the TransPerth bus system. It was a veritable Rosetta Stone, with the same blurb repeated in:
English, Amharic, Arabic, Burmese, Chinese, Dinka, Farsi, Karen, Swahili, French, Kirundi and Dari.
In Houston, Texas, you are likely to see English, Spanish and Vietnamese. At the KLIA International Airport in Kuala Lumpur, announcements are made in Bahasa, English and Mandarin. On the Quebec subway signs are in French first and only grudgingly in smaller print in English, on the Tokyo train system, Japanese (and tellingly, ONLY Japanese!). The ferry from Helsinki, Finland to Tallinn, Estonia will print tickets in Finnish and Swedish, but not Estonian.
I recently gained some interesting insight into the Western Australia melting pot of cultures when I found myself gazing at the information placard on the TransPerth bus system. It was a veritable Rosetta Stone, with the same blurb repeated in:
English, Amharic, Arabic, Burmese, Chinese, Dinka, Farsi, Karen, Swahili, French, Kirundi and Dari.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Lessons Learned
Rare Earths are in the news (no not the disco band from the 70's, but the 17 elements and their alloys that are essential to many high tech applications), see: http://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/11256/china-rare-earths-are-not-a-bargaining-tool-11256.html, and since I am working in part for the mining industry these days, it took me back to my earliest encounters with these strange and wonderful outliers on the Periodic Table. In 1978 I was doing lab work in the Michigan State University geology department with Dr. Thomas Vogel, who was investigating immiscible magmas from Mt. Desert Island in Maine (the work was published in 1980: http://www.jstor.org/pss/30062379). My job was to grind up core plugs from opposite sides of flow boundaries in the samples and take them over to the nuclear reactor in the basement of the old Engineering building for neutron activation. Got to wear a dosimeter badge and then bring back the “hot” samples in the back of Vogel's Volvo station wagon surrounded by lead bricks. I've often wondered since how much stray radiation that vehicle picked up and what would have happened if he tried to drive it across the Canadian border with today's detection technology! Anyway we did neutron activation analysis using a pulse height analyzer attached through a teletype interface to the University CDC 6500 mainframe to store and analyze the data (high tech stuff at the time). I did the linear regression analysis to calibrate against standard samples on a programmable TI calculator that stored the programs on a magnetic card. And it was notable for me because it marked one of two key learnings for me early in my scientific career.
I remember distinctly we were plotting the relative abundances of the REE's based on the pulse heights from the multi-channel pulse height analyzer. I was fitting a best fit linear regression to the data, and Dr. Vogel wanted all the plots to go through the origin, because theoretically, with none of the element present, there should be no reading. Being the one doing the lab work, I knew from experience that there would always be some cross-contamination of samples, so I insisted that the plots should be a best fit to the real data and not include the origin as a valid data point. After a few discussions over beers at the Peanut Barrel, Dr. Vogel agreed, and the lab and data analysis procedures developed by a third-year undergraduate student went into the paper published by two PhD's and a Master's candidate. Lesson learned: never forget it's all about the rocks.
My willingness to argue the point was informed by an experience the summer before as a student geologist in Exuma Sound on the research vessel R/V Gillis out of the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Miami (http://search.datapages.com/data/doi/10.1306/212F7B99-2B24-11D7-8648000102C1865D). We were mapping turbidites off the Bahamas using deep water piston coring and I was part of the deck crew. As one of the core barrels went over the side, I noticed that it did not look the same as the others, as if the weight drop had already been triggered or not set correctly, but I didn't say anything because I was just a student watching from the deck. Four hours later the barrel was retrieved with no sample and considerable waste of the ship's time.
Lesson learned: sometimes the junior members of the team are the ones who see things that the experienced hands have gotten complacent about. That's why a co-pilot can abort a takeoff and any member of an offshore rig crew can shut down the operation without retribution if they feel a procedure is unsafe.
I remember distinctly we were plotting the relative abundances of the REE's based on the pulse heights from the multi-channel pulse height analyzer. I was fitting a best fit linear regression to the data, and Dr. Vogel wanted all the plots to go through the origin, because theoretically, with none of the element present, there should be no reading. Being the one doing the lab work, I knew from experience that there would always be some cross-contamination of samples, so I insisted that the plots should be a best fit to the real data and not include the origin as a valid data point. After a few discussions over beers at the Peanut Barrel, Dr. Vogel agreed, and the lab and data analysis procedures developed by a third-year undergraduate student went into the paper published by two PhD's and a Master's candidate. Lesson learned: never forget it's all about the rocks.
My willingness to argue the point was informed by an experience the summer before as a student geologist in Exuma Sound on the research vessel R/V Gillis out of the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Miami (http://search.datapages.com/data/doi/10.1306/212F7B99-2B24-11D7-8648000102C1865D). We were mapping turbidites off the Bahamas using deep water piston coring and I was part of the deck crew. As one of the core barrels went over the side, I noticed that it did not look the same as the others, as if the weight drop had already been triggered or not set correctly, but I didn't say anything because I was just a student watching from the deck. Four hours later the barrel was retrieved with no sample and considerable waste of the ship's time.
Lesson learned: sometimes the junior members of the team are the ones who see things that the experienced hands have gotten complacent about. That's why a co-pilot can abort a takeoff and any member of an offshore rig crew can shut down the operation without retribution if they feel a procedure is unsafe.
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