Description of carbonate cores, USGS Florida aquifer studies

The USGS is developing a 3D geomodel that will put the Floridan Aquifer in a stratigraphic and hydrogeologic context. Construction of the model requires integration seismic interpretations, faults, karst features, and lithologic and stratigraphic units.

As part of this study, the USGS Caribbean-Florida Water Science Center required physical and interpretive descriptions of slabbed-core, core-chip samples, well-cuttings samples, and petrographic thin sections. e4 operates a laboratory having instruments for precisely this type of project. The laboratory equipment can image the fabric, porosity, and mineralogy. We also have portable scanners that acquire visible and XRF scans. The laboratory can measure porosity, porosimetry, seismic velocities, and mineralogy.

The study involves description of 2,800 ft of slabbed core, 1,500 thin sections, 1,200 core chips and more than 1,000 cutting samples. Those samples not currently available will be generated from a new 10,000ft deep Cretaceous test well to be drilled in southeastern Florida during 2016, and possibly new Floridan aquifer wells and coreholes.