Preparing boreholes for gas and water content montioring
White Family Outdoor Learning Center, Outdoor Research ·Last week, researchers from UT led by Dr. Rempe drilled a lot of holes into the ground at the White Outdoor Learning Center in collaboration with many other groups at UT Austin to study the Critical Zone. The Critical Zone includes everything from the trees, to the soil, and even to the groundwater in the rock below, which in the case of the White Center, is carbonate. We use these holes, or boreholes, to measure water content and gas in the subsurface. These measurements will help us understand how much water is stored in the rock, how stored water changes over time, and lots of other processes important for ecoystem functioning. This sort of experimental set-up involves a lot of work and people over multiple days. Today, we took videos of the borehole walls to characterize the rock structure and root presence with the help of a very cute lab assistant, my dog Willow. More info about the White Family Outdoor Learning Center can be found here.
