Glacier Drilling Hosts ‘Sweet’ Sonic Drilling Field Demo

Glacier Drilling, in Durham, CT, designed a “Sonic Drilling Overview and Field Demonstration” course last October for the Connecticut Licensed Environmental Professionals ( LEPs). The event consisted of an indoor presentation and discussion of the pros and cons of sonic drilling.

It was followed by a field demonstration using Glacier’s drilling equipment: an auger rig pulling 2-in. split spoon samples, a Geoprobe® 8040DT rig that sampled 5-ft. Macro-Core® soil samples, and a Geoprobe® 8140LS Rotary Sonic drill collecting both 4- and 6-in. soil cores as well as 4-in. samples of the underlying basalt bedrock. The larger diameter 6-in. cores clearly revealed exactly what was below the ground surface.

What sample string tells the best story?

All aspects from cost, speed obtained, and sample accuracy were discussed. The topics covered sonic safety, costs incurred, heat generated from dense soil drilling and how to minimize, sonic tooling options, and groundwater sampling. Mark Schock, Owner of Glacier Drilling and event moderator, also spoke about the advantages of drilling speed in all formations, minimized wastes generated, actions of vibrations transmitted to tool strings, head design, and why he chose Geoprobe® verses other sonic manufacturers.

Mark said the course was “in the works over five years. We held it at a small ski area that was in full fall foliage,” he said. “It was sweet!”

One attendee stated, “Mark did a good job explaining the pros and cons of the system. The audience was mostly senior-level people who might make decisions in using this tool if not previously exposed to it.” 

Glacier Drilling has been in business for 21 years, and offers a variety of subsurface tools for specific project requirements, including Geoprobe® machines of all sizes, from 420M to 8040DT to the 8140LS sonic rig.