Drilling And Coring Systems For Shallow Water Exploration (1980)

Drilling And Coring Systems For Shallow Water Exploration Andre M. Rossfelder; Andre M. Rossfelder GEOMAREX Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Dominique M. Daguise; Dominique M. Daguise Polymin S.A./Geomarex Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Randall J. Pollock Randall J. Pollock GEOMAREX Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Paper presented at the Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, Texas, May 1980. Paper Number: OTC-3876-MS https://doi.org/10.4043/3876-MS Published: May 05 1980 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Get Permissions Search Site Citation Rossfelder, Andre M., Daguise, Dominique M., and Randall J. Pollock. "Drilling And Coring Systems For Shallow Water Exploration." Paper presented at the Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, Texas, May 1980. doi: https://doi.org/10.4043/3876-MS Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentAll ProceedingsOffshore Technology ConferenceOTC Offshore Technology Conference Search Advanced Search ABSTRACTFor several years, GEOMAREX has conducted waterborne and tideland drilling to limited penetration depths of l00? to 150? in various areas of the United States and the Pacific. Most of the work was performed in distant sites, generally undrilled, unexplored and often uncharted. These difficult logistics and their demanding sampling requirements led to the development of a new, specific suite of equipment. Upon this experience, GEOMAREX has extended these developments to some new components particularly aimed at shallow water mineral exploration, with the accent on electrical rotary, percussive and vibratory drives.INTRODUCTIONShallow water mining belongs to a relatively old state-of-the-art as it essentially relies upon dredging technology. However, shallow water mineral exploration remains a wide-open field for new developments. Since 1974, GEOMAREX has conducted such a shallow water exploration in various remote areas of the Pacific and, occasionally, performed tideland core drilling in the United States. In the Pacific Region, the operations were drastically constrained by several logistics and operational limitations: transportation by local vessels of opportunity or by plane to the sites of interest, access to these sites through surf and reef, poor marine charts, lack of local assistance and accommodations, sudden tropical squalls, seawater corrosion, moisture, etc. These constraints, compounded with the need for fast deployment and for quick-paced cost-effective operations, led us to rapidly recognize that the current drilling hardware was not adequate and that we had to develop a new and specific suite of equipment. Each and all of its components were progressively selected, specified, designed and manufactured to meet the challenge of the operating and economic requirements. The first part of this paper summarizes these past experiences and efforts as an introduction to the new current developments described in the second section.I. EXPERIENCE ACQUIRED AND RESULTING APPROACHESThe main problem areas with which we were faced and the responses that we designed can be commented upon under the few following headlines.I.l Deployment:The use of local vessels-of-opportunity and of aircraft, dictated by the remoteness of the sites, and the frequent need for setting- up the equipment overboard in open sea or to land it on small craft across the surf and over the reef demanded that the weight of the equipment be cut down to a minimum and that the heaviest single component could still be hand-carried by two or four men. The drilling capability was limited to about 50 meters (160 feet) from the water surface, which is the practical maximum for state-of the- art dredging. The self-propelled drilling platform and its assembly consists of large US-Army surplus inflatable pontoons supporting an aluminum tubular frame with a plywood decking, offering a total work surface of 20 × 8 feet. A rigid aluminum tetra pod supports a light rotary drill and also the vibratory or percussion drives alternately implemented for some specific tasks. The drill selected for the rotary drive is the well-known portable Winkie. Keywords: geomarex, limitation, vibrocorer, drillstem, assembly, sediment, platform, vibrator, exploration, application Subjects: Drilling Operations, Coring, fishing This content is only available via PDF. 1980. Offshore Technology Conference You can access this article if you purchase or spend a download.