Last Thursday & Friday, Dr. Hole took me along for some field work in south-central Virginia, where the largest uranium deposit in the United States is located. Soils formed from the weathering of the bedrock were uranium-rich due to past hydrothermal activity. When this was discovered, the landowners and some neighboring farmers formed a corporation to explore mining possibilities.

We did a short seismic survey across some fields with cows, over a hill, and through patches of poison ivy in the woods. The 600m-long line was marked with geophones every 10m, and we took shots every 100m. The ground was harder than expected, but the drilling crew was able to finish in the morning and then we got to eat ice cream cake because it was someone's birthday! Throughout the afternoon, the shots were taken and we were able to collect the minimum amount of data that Dr. Hole wanted, since there were some false triggers and computer problems. I got to set off the shotgun once, which was terrifying because the hole was a little shallow, but it was fun!

This week, I've been learning to use ArcMap and adding layers to a map of the Salton Trough region. Did you know it can take the program two and a half hours to mosaic a bunch of rasters together? Blerg. (Does anyone watch 30 Rock? :) ) Tomorrow morning, Dr. Hole said he could go over the 1979 USGS Imperial Valley data and the Coles Hill data we just collected.