I'm currently employed as an Exploration Geologist by Nyrstar's Middle Tennessee zinc mines in Gordonsville, TN. The zinc is associated with oil and gas brines that charged through the Beech Grove Lineament into paleo-karst features of the Middle Mascot. As the most senior member of our Exploration team, I manage surface and underground drilling programs, geophysical surveys, and Exploration resource modeling that add to the Life of Mine Plan. In an average work week, my time is split between project management and more technical data analysis. Some of my accomplishments are:
Starting out my career as a Geophysicist for BP was amazing. It essentially boiled down to mixing computers and geoscience. Interpreting seismic data, planning wells, and building complex reservoir models feels more like playing video games than actual work.
My first task when starting in Thunder Horse Reservoir Management was mapping a small reservoir within seismic data. It started out as busy work to learn the data and interpretation workflow, but soon after, I found myself as the expert of this mostly overlooked reservoir. My structural and oil-in-place interpretations were used to update the reserve bookings and inform future well completion decisions. All the while, I was lucky enough to be involved in a seismic reprocessing project under some of BP's best geophysical mentors.
Next, I was on the 'Totally Integrated Geology and Engineering Resource (TIGER) Team'. This team hosted specialists that planned and monitored well operations for the NaKika and Thunder Horse fields. The highlight of this rotation was planning an infrastructure-led exploration well. Everything was much faster paced and hinged strongly around communication between different teams, disciplines, and even field co-partners. I was involved in nearly every process of planning the hole, but my favorite was the back-and-forth with the drilling engineers to avoid geohazards with our well path design.
The first round of layoffs shuffled the whole company around, and I ended up on the Operated By Other (OBO) team as the sole geophysicist for the Great White field. My task in this role was to verify and optimize the technical aspects of projects that the field operator requested our monetary participation in. Since all the decisions hinged on the results of modeling, I provided the geologic input to our reservoir engineer and even kick-started a project to build a brand new model for shallower reservoir developments.
Roy Johnson, the University of Arizona, and HyperDynamics provided a tremendous playground of data for my Masters research. Since I've already spent such a long time writing up a fancy description of my research, feel free to enjoy the abstract:
"Systems of rift-related fracture zones with two distinct orientations converge at the Guinea Plateau, West Africa and control the geometry of the continental margin. One fracture zone orientation formed as a result of the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean and the other from the opening of the South Atlantic Ocean. Crustal weaknesses associated with the North Atlantic Guinea Fracture Zone have been exploited by magmatism that created the Grimaldi and Bathymetrists seamount chains. Detailed mapping on the Guinea Plateau using 3-D seismic data highlights cylindrical features that are capped by a Late Paleocene unconformity. Most of these seismic anomalies range up to 2 km in diameter, but one 20-km-diameter feature covers the northwestern corner of one of the 3-D seismic surveys. The larger structure, referred to as Structure 3, has a large gravitational response that highlights its aerial extent, but lacks a clear magnetic signature. High seismic amplitudes, non-diapiric morphologies, and onlap onto the flanks suggest these features were created by extrusive volcanic events. This interpreted volcanic field correlates with the trend of the Grimaldi seamount chain. The interpreted age of the volcanic field on the plateau is consistent with the Late Paleocene and younger seamounts toward the east; in addition, Structure 3 is on the same order of scale as the seamounts. Due to the spatial correlations and timing, the post-rift volcanism on the Guinea Plateau is likely linked to the same magmatism that created the Grimaldi and Bathymetrists seamount chains."
While working on my Geology Bachelors at the University of Tennessee (UT), I always wanted to specialize in geophysics. It's hard to convince a professor to loan out tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment to an undergrad though. After pestering him for a while, he finally told me if I took his summer course and designed my own project, he would consider having one of his graduate students help me. I don't think he actually believed that I would follow through. Trailing rumors I had heard about karst development around buildings on campus, I got in contact with the facilities manager. We worked out a great survey area covering the intramural fields, which had suffered a sinkhole collapse just a few years prior. Despite equipment problems and having to wake up before dawn every weekend, our maps successfully highlighted possible sinkhole development and some other unexpected man-made features using ground penetrating radar (GPR) and electromagnetic (EM) techniques.
I learned a lot about taking initiative, survey design, and how to deal with aggressive intramural teams that don't care that we booked the field until 10 am. In turn, my professor learned a lot about how to use undergrads for free research and labor. He asked me to take on a second independent research project. This time, he had a more academic project in mind and a few other undergrads that were interested. We tested the relation between ground conductivity and GPR attenuation in hopes that EM techniques could be used to determine if a GPR survey would be practical. Conclusion? You're better off just taking the extra time to set up a GPR survey. Still, it was a fun experience and definitely swayed me towards a more applied / industry-focused path.
Entertaining tourists about the history and discovery of Tuckaleechee Caverns always bored me; I was far more fascinated in how the bizzare, underground landscape in my hometown formed. Any time I noticed something new, or if a guest asked me a question I didn't know the answer to, I would spend my evenings researching the topic. This curiosity is what pushed me to explore geoscience as a career.