I'm getting all up in some frozen dirt

I'm having fun.

This job lets me do basically exactly what I wanted to do with my masters degree. I get to do the preliminary design, then go out to the field, use the data to refine my assumptions and update models and recommendations, then be involved in construction administration. 

I got to do thermal hand calcs to determine freeze/thaw depths, then evaluate different failure modes (bearing capacity, slope stability, etc.) and developed recommendations based on the available data and our assumptions. Of course, a lot of the recommendations consisted of 'you should really let us go do a geotech investigation so we can try to save you money'.

And then I got to go out and drill lots and lots of holes. When I get back to Anchorage, I'll take the info from this geotechnical investigation and use it. Which is so freaking awesome! We'll do some additional field work this summer and should be able to validate the model outputs by comparing them to real-world results. 

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I've been in the field almost continually since 3 March. It's starting to wear on me, but all in all, I'm enjoying myself. 

After all, I'm playing with frozen dirt.

Granted, it's kind of awful when you're standing outside for 14 hours a day instead of working in a heated enclosure. I've taken and classified several hundred samples of various peats, gravels, sands, clays, and silts, and drilled boreholes anywhere from 15- to 70-feet deep. We've also confirmed that auguring through warm (e.g. 29-degree F) ice is basically impossible and a hammer or air rotary setup is a waaaaay better life choice. Turns out, it's hard to drill through what is basically a slushie. 

I've gotten to identify the bottom of the active layer/start of permafrost based on the ice formations, and mucked around with massive ice (if it's cold, it drills really well; if it's warm... slushie). 

I've stood around outside at 0 F in 20 mph wind while the drilling went really, really slow. 

I laughed my ass off when day shift drilled into a tundra pond and flooded the drill sled (I laughed cuz they had it cleaned up by the time night shift showed up). 

I got to man the drill controls and (kinda) learned how to drive a skid steer. I think the driller had me drive cuz he was looking for a laugh, since I definitely did not improve productivity.

I installed a couple thermistors to measure temperature profile in the ground in order to identify thaw bulbs and active layer depth (although I'm pretty sure I know exactly where the active layer ends. Yay ice formations!). 

And I have definitely regressed to the full classiness of my construction days. Apparently I fit in well with a drill crew. 

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Due to the nature of working on the North Slope, I can't go into much (aka any) detail on what I'm actually working on/looking for. Nor can I post any pictures that show any kind of oil wells, infrastructure, etc. So you'll have to content yourself with pictures of frozen dirt and sunrises (5 weeks on night shift means I didn't see much daylight for awhile). 

The drillers I've been working with, Onyx Drilling, are based out of Fairbanks and pretty much rock. They built a super sweet drill enclosure for our tundra drilling, and have been building their own drill bits to deal with the unique and changing soil conditions we've encountered. 

It's pretty sweet, even though occasionally we murder a bit. Or two.

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And now, I must confess, I'm ready to go home and sit behind a desk for a month or two. Being away from Ev for prolonged periods is a bit rough, especially since we had to do the long distance thing for a when I moved to Anchorage. There's lots more field work on the horizon (much to Ev's dismay), and now I get to take the info from all the samples we've collected and do some hardcore, fancy pants design.