INTRODUTION TO GEOPHYSICS TRAINING

VIDEO PROMO

CLIENT SCRIPT DRAFT #1

11/09/01

The program opens with digitally treated shots from the class with soundbite titles such as “I would highly recommend the course...” and “ It’s a 

good way to set up a class...” floating across the screen. On camera sound 

-bites from students and instructors then appear on screen. 

Joe Rogers (student): And I've learned quite a lot and I definitely 

would recommend it to anybody whose interested in introductory 

geophysical concepts.

George Ten Eyck (Instructor): The class is going great. We have 

a good group of students. We have a good mix of uh people with 

varied backgrounds, uh people that have experience working in the 

field. 

Kim Burch (student): Yeah, they're terrific courses and when

you're, when you're out there actually gathering data you need
continual training like this to maintain your technical expertise so its 

really helpful.

Mike Gibbons (instructor) Any place where things are hidden, or 

you want to find out what the geology is, this is the course to take to 

see whether the techniques will work for you or not.

Shots of the students in the classroom and in the field working are 

shown as the narrator continues.

Narrator: The USEPA workshop, “Introduction to Environmental 

Geophysics” is a four-day course that provides individuals who 

have little or no geophysical exploration experience with practical 

information to effectively design and supervise geophysical surveys 

at hazardous materials sites. 

Narrator: Students learn the latest non-destructive techniques to 

characterize hazardous waste sites without digging or drilling. The 

course focuses on geophysical plan design, the operation of

geophysical equipment used for hazardous waste site

characterization, procedures for safely collecting geophysical data, 

and the fundamentals of making simple interpretations of that data.
Mike Gibbons, of Tetra Tech NUS, one of the instructors for the course, is 

introduced and gives some more details about the course. 

Mike: This course is essentially designed for people with very little 

background in geophysics. It’s not really designed for

geophysicists, this is designed for geologists and engineers and 

biologists who have responsibility for overseeing or planning site 

characterization or waste characterization on uncontrolled

hazardous waste sites, Brownfields, or RECRA sites. 

As the narrator continues to explain the course, bulleted titles are shown 

on-screen describing the topics discussed during the course. Shots of the 

students and thee instructors interacting are also shown.

Narrator: At the workshop, federal, state, and local government 

environmental workers learn about field work plan development as 

well as procedures for the use of geophysical methods for field 

screening; procedures for collection of field data using

magnetometers, seismographs, electromagnetic and resistivity

instruments, ground-penetrating radar; and quality assurance

considerations. 

The course is conducted at an EPA Region 5 facility outside of 

Chicago, Illinois. During the morning, students take part in lectures, 

group discussions, demonstrations, and computer modeling of
data. In the afternoon students then participate in outdoor field 

exercises with an emphasis on the hands-on use of geophysical 

equipment.

Mike Gibbons returns and gives more information about the course along 

with the narrator and Mark Vendl of the U.S. Environmental Protection 

Agencies Region V Superfund Program. More shots of students and

instructors working together are shown.

Mike: Over the years we found that adults learn better by doing 

things and less by being talked to so by breaking the class up into 

lecture in the morning and exercise in the afternoon; we talk about 

the techniques they're going to use in the afternoon in the morning, 

so they're cognizant of what those are, and then in the afternoon 

they actually get to work with the equipment and to do those 

techniques. And the next day we do the same thing.

Narrator: The 4 acre field exercise area has 4 simulated hazardous 

sites containing buried drums, pipes, conduit and other debris that 

could contain hazardous materials at a real site. 

Mark: A very important part of the class is actually providing hands 

on uh use of the equipment. And so about half of the class is spent 

in the field at a site that we've developed where we buried uh 

buried metal and things like that and let students actually uh
conduct surveys and see how the instruments work and see if they 

can find uh these objects.

Joe Rogers, a student with the Michigan Department of Environmental

Quality, Waste Management Division is introduced and talks about why he 

thinks the course works.

Joe Rogers: I think it works well because you get the theory in the 

morning and you get an understanding of the methods, and then 

you get out and actually get to use the equipment and I think that 

helps, it helps me at least in terms of learning, and in terms of 

actually getting your hands on the equipment and dealing with all 

the problems that go with field data collection that you don't really 

think about when you're in the classroom. So it’s a good mix.

George Ten Eyck, an instructor with TetraTech NUS is introduced and

gives a specific example of a technique the students are learning.

George: What we talked about in the lecture this morning was 

seismic refraction. Seismic is the inducing of sound waves into the 

ground and we measure the travel time of that sound wave through 

the subsurface and from that travel time we can determine depth to 

groundwater or depth to bedrock.
George: What we'll demonstrate this afternoon is the seismic

refraction survey which is a seismic method. We induce energy into 

the ground. We're going to be using a sledgehammer which causes 

an acoustic wave to go into the ground and it bounces, it reflects off 

certain geologic surfaces that could be the top of groundwater, or 

the top of bedrock and it also refracts the energy and we measure 

the time that it takes that energy to flow through the ground and 

then we plot that out. 

Mike: We only cover two techniques a day and this way they have 

the ability to really concentrate on those two techniques. And then 

as the week goes on, each technique builds on the previous one. 

Today, which is the third day of fieldwork, they'll be using the 

ground penetrating radar and some of the electro magnetic

techniques to pinpoint their targets. 

And last night and this morning, they worked on their target maps, 

or their dig maps, and then today they'll actually go in and use the 

highest resolution technique, which is the ground penetrating radar. 

We'll also be doing seismic refraction, which gives them an idea of 

the geology of the site.
Narrator: Students walk away from the course with a solid

understanding of how to put their newfound knowledge to work 

everyday. It’s information they can use to make their jobs more 

productive and efficient.

Kim Burch a student with EPA's National Enforcement Investigation and 

Joe Rogers returns to talk how they will use the information on the job.

Kim: There are a lot of good aspects to this course, both in terms 

of actually using this instrumentation in the field, which is a big part 

of what we do, but also the lectures are really helpful to understand 

the theory behind it so that we can better utilize these methods in 

the field.

Our division will use this kind of training to better conduct field 

investigations to collect evidence for enforcement investigations to 

determine where to dig to try to find drums or other things that have 

been illegally disposed on site or to conduct investigations to better 

get data off of the site to use later in an enforcement investigation, 

either civilly or criminally.

Uh, I work on a lot of uh corrective actions for the Waste

Management Division so we do a lot of site investigations of which 
we oversee contractors and, and sometimes do some

investigations ourselves, so this is a good tool for me to be able to 

evaluate peoples' work plans and the quality of work that they do as 

well as maybe, plan some investigations of our own.

The narrator and Joe Rogers return to give some final thoughts on the 

course. More shots of the students and instructors interacting are shown.

Narrator: The course also better prepares students to oversee 

contractors, prepare budgets, specify equipment, organize

schedules, and analyze reports. 

Joe: You know, obviously you're not going to become an expert in 

a week but it’s a good way to become familiar with all the different 

tools that are available, what their limitations and their benefits are. 

Narrator: The course is open to federal, state, and local

environmental agencies. For more information contact the EPA

Regional Training Coordinators, visit www.trainex.org or

www.ertpdu.org or call _____________?