Innovation Anthology #649:
An exciting development for Dr. Lee Barbour and his students is the use of an instrument called a piezometer.
Dr. Barbour holds the NSERC/Syncrude Industrial Research Chair in Hydrogeological Characterization of Oil Sands Mine Closure Landforms.
Much like the fairy tale about the “Princess and the Pea”, the piezometer is so sensitive, it can actually feel the pressure of rainfall even though its buried 50 meters below ground.
DR. LEE BARBOUR: As part of the drilling program, we installed deep within these holes, below the waste landforms in the natural shale, a device called a vibrating wire piezometer. So we have a bunch of these installed below some of the oil sands mine closure landforms, and I just was working with the student here actually las week, and very exciting, He was showing me a response plot, where a large rainfall event occurred where 25 millimeters of water fell on the top of the southwest sand storage dike and he’s measuring core pressure responses 50 meters below ground, and he can actually measure the rainfall.
Dr. Barbour says integrating a series of piezometers below ground is a cheaper way to measure and predict water balance.
Thanks today to SYNCRUDE
FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
Guest
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Sponsor
Syncrude
Program Date: 2014-11-20