Geotechnical Adventures
A friend of mine sent this to me. It is a great read!
Dams, Drilling and the Jebel Top
Ian, this week's newsletter is about drilling on a an Omani damsite and a high altitude adventure
“Wanna come on a trip?’, asked big Clint, our drilling supervisor and hydrogeologist in his Montana drawl, as he hauled a scruffy photocopied sheet of paper out of his back pocket. They were the hand-written directions to some ancient tombs on a Jebel top, recently discovered, and definitely requiring a visit. And so, it came to pass – at four pm we piled into his Nissan Patrol and headed literally into the sunset. Now, these were the days when GPS technology was in its infancy, along with cell phone networks, so all we had were those hand-written directions to guide us on our adventure.
It really was a case of following the gravel track for 15.4 km, turning left at the tree, driving another 6.7 km, turning at the date palm plantation, driving 3.6 km, crossing the wadi, making a steep ascent up to the right, turn left on the goat track, start to climb, taking care not to drop your wheel off the edge. Pass village on right after 4.1 km, or directions to that effect.
We were at the time drilling for a dam in a place called Wadi Al Tayeen and the rigs were churning out core unrelentingly, and then there were the lugeon tests to carry out, piezometers to install, and a drilling programme to manage. So to skive off for an afternoon was a rare privilege and I jumped at the chance of going on an Indiana Jones style adventure.
The goat track took us higher and higher
The tombs are located high on the jebel top at a place called Jaylah, which actually isn’t a place at all – just a high-altitude plateau of sun baked rock. We drove for kilometre after kilometre through wadis, over rocks and boulders, and ultimately found ourselves on a rocky goat track that carried us higher and higher into the mountain fastness of the Al Hajar. And as we climbed the temperature fell from somewhere in the mid-forties, to be replaced by cool, invigorating mountain air which we gulped down like cold champagne.
Grinding up that long, winding rocky goat path, we felt that we were on a grand adventure, which of course we were. Clint had forever been grumbling about how he could never get used to the Arabian heat, and he was as happy as I was to wind down window and suck in lungful’s of relatively cool, 25-degree air.
My adventures into another world
The day was well advanced when we eventually found our tombs – beautiful beehive structures with a hole at the base through which I was able to wriggle and take some pictures. The encircling stonework was open to the sky, simple, unadorned subject to a millennia of heat, dust and occasional rain. Clint couldn’t wriggle his bulk through that tiny aperture so I had to report back on my adventures into that other world. The Jebel itself was magnificent - a grand high desert, with the high Late Campanian/Maastrichian-Tertiary sedimentary cover stretching out to the sun burnished horizon.
And then it was time to go, for the westering sun was almost gone and there was a long, rocky unfamiliar drive home. Pounding down that rocky goat track, our plans on getting home in time for supper were scuppered when we came upon a herd of sheep and goats, and then a wandering community of Bedouin. Unable to drive through that thronging mass of bleating goats, and unable to refuse an invitation for qahwah (coffee) we climbed out of our twentieth-century time machine and were ushered into a world little changed, or so it seemed to me, for over a thousand years.
Roll over Indiana Jones
The flickering shadows danced across the weather-beaten faces of nomadic tribesmen and fresh faces of the boys alike, while the dark silhouettes of the women and girls stood arrayed beyond the amber caress of the firelight, faces half covered, whilst goats butted their way unabashedly through the human circle or jumped expertly between the rocky outcrops, bleating incessantly. Qahwah was soon brewing in a traditional Arabian coffee pot, dates were produced, and there we sat, surrounded by wandering Bedouin, drinking coffee and trying to communicate in our broken Arabic, with Clint making occasional utterances to me along the lines of that the coffee was being made with frog-pond water with dire predictions of impending dysentery.
Tales of the Arabian Nights
I thought I had just parachuted into the Tales of the Arabian Nights, and just when I thought my adventure could not get more perfect, a full moon heaved itself up above the eastern horizon to bathe us in its golden light, and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Roll over Indiana Jones.
It was a long pounding road home that night, in the sultry Arabian darkness, avoiding boulders, goats and elusive djinns who flitted in the dark shadows beside the moonlit road. We fell, exhausted, through the door of our flat-roofed house, hungry, thirsty but with the blood running quick in our veins and the light of adventure burning in our eyes.
We eventually drilled those holes
We eventually drilled all of those holes at the dam site, logged all of the cores, carried out the lugeon testing and kept ourselves out of trouble. And then I had to fly back to England, not on a magic carpet but in a Boeing 777, but I have never forgotten those Omani adventures, and a long winding road to the jebel top.
Once again I am over my 800 words. The Omani ophiolite is a geological classic, comprising ocean floor and mantle which has been caught in the tectonic mill and now lies exposed under the blistering Arabian sun for geologists to inspect and ponder. For a paper on the Omani ophiolite, click here
So if you need some drilling done on a dam site, give us a shout, for we are always up for the adventure and bring with us a tonne of experience.
A Favour Please
A favour – if this resonated with you please share it with work colleagues and friends, as the more the merrier and it can only be good for our community.
Not much of a lesson here, but I was reminded of this adventure yesterday and thought it would be fun to share.
Do have a very grand day.
Kind regards
Gerald Davie
GeoZone GeoServices
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GeoZone GeoServices is a multi disciplinary geotechnical and geological consulting firm with site investigation, geotechnical design, hydrogeology and exploration skills. In addition we have a geotechnical instrumentation division with experience ranging from St Helena Airport to the Gautrain.
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