The pore pressures of the S, R, Q and P sands follow the hydrostatic gradient and are in pressure communication across the entire Auger basin, Gulf of Mexico. At the structural crests of these sands the pore pressures exceed the least principle stress; directly above the sand crests, are a series of mud volcanoes. Using 3-D seismic and pressure data we map the distribution of subsurface pressur...

Detecting large lumps of oil sand is a critical step which protects exploitation facilities from jamming. This report presents a method that detects large lumps with edge detection and edge classification. The approach applies Gaussian based local scale control algorithm to detect edges in oil sands, then extracts intensity features as well as geometry features for edge classification. Trained ...

Fen plant growth in peat contaminated with groundwater discharges of oil sands process water (OSPW) was assessed in a greenhouse over two growing seasons. Three treatments (non-diluted OSPW, diluted OSPW and rainwater) were tested on five vascular plants and four mosses. All vascular plants tested can grow in salinity and naphthenic acids levels currently produced by oil sands activity in north...

Calcareous sediments are located in temperate and tropical areas near offshore hydrocarbon industries and petrochemical reserves such as the Persian Gulf of Iran. These sediments have complicated physical properties which make them completely different from silicate soils. Carbonate sediments are mainly formed by the skeletal remains of marine organisms. Therefore, a wide variety of engineering...

In this paper, an elastoplastic constitutive model is presented for predicting sandy soil behavior under monotonic and cyclic loadings. The model is based on the CJS3 model that takes into account deviatoric and isotropic mechanisms of plasticity. The flow rule in deviatoric mechanism is non-associated and a kinematic hardening law controls the evolution of the yield surface. In the present s...

In 1953 human remains and a new type of Paleoindian artifact were discovered eroding from a "blowout" in a small dune field along Monahans Draw, near Midland, Texas, on the Southern High Plains. The projectile points became the type "Midland" collection. Stratigraphy, radiometric dating, paleontology, and geochemistry suggested that the artifacts and bones dated to at least 10,000 B.P. and that...

Calcareous sands and podzols of four different ages (0, 3 100, 4200 and 5500 calendar years) form a soil chronosequence at Rheban Spit, a prograded sand barrier, near Orford on the east coast of Tasmania. In terms of profile morphology the soils range from undifferentiated quartz sand with shell at the youngest site, to a well-developed podzol with prominent AI, A, and B horizons at the oldest ...

Techniques for the enumeration and the determination of the potential activity of disturbed sediment mixed populations at control sites and sites within the Athabasca oil sands formation were applied to August and December samples. These techniques included the determination of general heterotrophic potential for the assimilation and respiration of glutamate, which indicated no oil sand-related...

The systematic analysis of mortars from monuments or historic buildings and the simultaneous study of the construction environment show that it was common practice to use naturally occurring sand from local rivers or streams for the production of the mortars. There are cases though, mainly on islands, where sands of natural origin were limited, and marine or crushed sands were used possibly aft...

As oil and gas exploration moves into deeper offshore areas, Shallow Water Flow (SWF) from overpressured, unconsolidated/uncemented sands becomes a high profile drilling hazard. Laboratory measurements show that SWF sands have high seismic compressional to shear velocity (Vp/Vs) ratios. Thus, elastic seismic inversion for Vp/Vs provides a quantitative identification of SWF sands, and predrill p...