Friday geology pic(s) - TDrilling the San Juan

I haven't blogged about geology for a bit, but I'm out here in Durango, CO on a project and the San Juan Mountains look gorgeous, the basin is full of terrific outcrops, and the weather is so perfect that I'm really itching to get out, hike, look around, and think about ROCKS again.

Unfortunately out here I'm chained to these drilling sites and sampling ROCKS...I haven't really had a chance to play around out here.

Here's my sweet cell phone picture of myself standing around on the drill pad out here:



Yes, that is a big ass fucking rig that at the time the picture was taken, was drilling through some coal seams in the Dakota formation, probably at around 4,000 ft below the ground surface. Geologically its kinda boring, but check this out:

they do "green" drilling, which means that all the drilling chemicals from the mud pits to fracure fluids are all contained in tanks (back in the day, drill rigs would just dig a big-ass unlined trench in the ground and put it all in there, where it would leak into ground and surface water)...the only "waste" this rig generates is drilling cuttings that come out looking like baby-poop (if babies ate sand-rich shale and coal). all the waste water generated is recycled through the system, and is eventually pumped back down the borehole where its pretty much inaccessable to anything.

If you had to develop a natural gas field, this company is doing some of the most environmentally responsible work I've ever seen.

I don't work for that company, I work for a company that is testing the cuttings to ensure that they are indeed environmentally responsible.