Going to Antarctica

[Vaquero]

I has raff.

 

[AustinN4]

Yeah, I'm hearing from my family back home that it is colder in Texas than here. Much colder. I had to come to Antarctica to stay warm.

Hey, it is summer there, what do you expect!

 

[RobertTheTexan]

Well, you'd have to like ice and snow and not much else.
Yeah, Hutto might really be more interesting.

My dad lived in hutto for a couple of years. Aside from having a hippopotamus as school mascot..... there just ain’t much in Hutto that’s exciting. Lol

Well you guys are close to one of my favorite BBQ’s in Taylor. But haven’t been there since my dad passed, but had some good times at Louis Mueller’s.


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[SidewaysTA]

Hi folks,

Sorry I haven't posted in a while but there hasn't been much to show. We have been drilling our first site and we will start logging soon. Then I'll probably have some content as I will be participating in the logging operation as a member of the gun watch team.

For now I thought some might find this interesting. It is a video showing how the JR conducts rig operations, in this case, tripping pipe. It is an older video but is still relevant as the process has not changed.



Here is a really nice shot I got from our photographer of the seals we passed.

I thought this was a cool photo too.

Don't mess with the JR. We'll go all "Breaking Bad" on you...

 

[AustinN4]

Nice shot on those seals!

 

[SidewaysTA]

Nice shot on those seals!

Yeah, he's got way better equipment than me. Canon 1D's, 5D's, Nikons, Hasselblads and all kinds of high end lenses.

Photobucket really doesn't do it justice. It looks way better on my screen.

 

[STXdevilsquid]

Very neat


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[SidewaysTA]

Great Weather for Shooting Guns

So we completed downhole logging. Basically we run a series of tools in the borehole and take readings measuring density, resistivity magnetism etc. Pretty much everything we run on the cores in the lab but in this case they are run in situ. It can be very valuable in instances where core recovery has been poor.

One of the logging runs we make is for vertical seismic profiling. Basically we send a tool down the borehole and then we generate a seismic shockwave and the tool records the time it takes the shockwave to reach it. It is used to understand the subsurface structure of the sea floor. There are methods to generate this shockwave. On the JR our seismic source is a pair of pneumatic "guns". I am on the gun team which means I help deploy the guns and monitor them while they are in use (gun watch).

The way they work, we suspend them below the surface of the water with a buoy. We supply them with 2000 psi of compressed air. When triggered, they fire a large air bubble into the water. This generates a seismic shockwave that is powerful enough to vibrate the entire ship.

There are international laws that govern the use of seismic sources. We must have personnel watch for marine mammals. If we see any marine mammals come inside the exclusion zone (1Km from the ship) we must cease fire until they leave the EZ as the sound could hurt them. When we start up, we must do a soft start, firing the guns at 500 psi once a minute for 5 minutes and increasing 250psi every 5 minutes until we are at full power, all while maintaining this marine mammal watch. Once ready, we turn control of them over to the logging engineer.

Hey, it gets me out of the IT office once in a while and it's a GUN.

Here's yours truly ready for a day at the shooting range.

So here they are. I believe they are 100 or 200cc displacement. We assemble them onto the frame and connect the chains and lines, air hoses and electrical cables to them. Everything must be safety wired so the shackles and lines don't back out.

Here is the electric control box and pneumatic control manifold. On the deck is an antifreeze pump pumping that pink antifreeze fluid into the gun supply line to prevent ice forming in the guns while in use.

Technical staff on mammal watch.

We have rigged the gun frame to the crane and they are being hoisted into the water.

Full pressure achieved and my finger is on the trigger...

And fire!

Ok, it's not very dramatic but like I said earlier, it vibrates the entire ship when you fire it and it is very loud.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

Texas ArcticTalk!

 

[Byrd666]

Keep teachin' us this stuff and we're gonna start thinkin' we know sumpt'n

 

[Vaquero]

Air guns.
Heh

 

[SidewaysTA]

Daily Visitors.

Man it is cold but despite that we are having daily visitors to the JR. We will leave soon for the next site so our guests will have to find another spot to lounge around.

Crabeater Seals

Someone shared this neat shot of a bird.

 

[MTA]

Making me cold just looking at these pictures. Thanks for sharing

 

[Just Geri]

Sounds like interesting work. The pictures are cool too. Thanks for sharing.

 

[ZX9RCAM]

Thanks for sharing...

 

[robertc1024]

My wife is in love with this thread. She loves seals. As long as I keep her away from the "what gun did you buy today" thread, I think I'm alright.

 

[Brains]

So your job is to fart in the bathtub. Just on a bigger scale.

Love the pics and all the nerdy stuff too. Keep it coming!

 

[SidewaysTA]

So your job is to fart in the bathtub. Just on a bigger scale.

Love the pics and all the nerdy stuff too. Keep it coming!

Pretty much but with some serious pressure. We're talking way more than refried beans and beer pressure.

 

[Darkpriest667]

Pretty much but with some serious pressure. We're talking way more than refried beans and beer pressure.

Curious, you're causing major seismic events inside the water. If a human was swimming in that water (and yes I know it's too damned cold) would it kill them?

 

[SidewaysTA]

It's possible if they were close enough. It would definitely hurt. It's pretty much the same as setting a small explosive off underwater. If you are close enough it will hurt you. At best if you were submerged it could damage your hearing.

That's why we have to watch for marine mammals and cease fire if they are spotted within the exclusion zone, which is typically just under a kilometer radius. Since this was in shallower water on the continental shelf, the EZ was extended to 1.4Km.

In fact we had to stop firing several times as we spotted whales and seals with in the EZ. A few humpbacks swam into the EZ and ended up circling the JR and swam right by the guns. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me at that moment as I was disabling the firing box.