Drilling and Coring Equipment

All new Mori S15 crawler-mounted drill rig fitted with a Tone Ecoprobe 06 medium frequency sonic drilling-head using 115mm diameter wire-line drilling consumables and transported on a Mercedes Benz Atego 1629A 4X4 truck. This rig and truck were funded from an ARC LIEF grant to the University of Wollongong, the University of Adelaide, Griffith University, Macquarie University and ANSTO at Lucas Heights. This rig is designed to maximise recovery of continuous cores of 65mm diameter in unconsolidated material to depths up to 30m such that sedimentary structures are uncontaminated and fully preserved. The drilling method was also chosen to exclude exposure to excessive heat and light from the sample during extraction to allow it to be luminescence dated. The rig will be used to sample coastal, fluvial, aeolian and lacustrine systems enabling interpretation of Australia's record of Quaternary environmental change."

The drill is operated by Brent Peterson, Technical Officer, and provides support for the investigations of the GeoQuEST Research Centre.

Mori S15 crawler-mounted drill rig

SEES also has an Atlas Copco "Cobra Pro" motor driven percussion coring device. This device is used complementary to the other drilling and coring devices as it is of smaller size and weight, and it thus easier and safer in its handling. The equipment contains a set of 12 one meter long open coring heads (for field reconnaissance and open sampling), 2 one meter long closed coring heads (for sampling of undisturbed samples in plastic inliners), and 20 one meter extension rods. Commonly, this device is used in unconsolidated sediment ranging from clay to fine gravel. Samples can commonly be taken from depths down to >10 m, and are extracted via a hydraulic extraction system (Stitz SZD-14A).

Atlas Copco "Cobra Pro" motor driven percussion coring device

A Jacro 105 trailer mounted drill rig is available for drilling in environments where access is difficult. The School has a range of augers, including a D-section and gouge auger.

Jacro 105