ILLINOIS STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY - ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY COLLABORATIVE GEOPHYSICS PROJECT

The Illinois State Geological Survey, and Illinois State University collaborated in a project to develop; 1) a pool of students trained to conduct shallow geophysical investigations of Quaternary materials and 2) to develop a 3-D geologic model of part of the major groundwater aquifer system in central Illinois, by conducting a real subsurface investigation. Included in the collaboration were workstations, student stipends (spring semester), student salaries and transportation for the field investigation, and survey scientist time to work with students. The collaborative project was supported by the Illinois Board of Higher Education. Seismic Micro-Technology, Houston, Texas, provided the software to interpret the processed seismic data. During the fall semester 2001, teams of students in Exploration Geophysics assisted with the initial shot line across the Mahomet Valley Aquifer. During the spring semester 2002, geophysists from the Illinois State Geological Survey taught students how to processes digital seismic data. Students then filtered and edited raw data, sorted records to common midpoints, made normal move out corrections, and created SEGY files for the initial shot line. Also students were introduced to Kingdom Suite+, a high-resolution 3-D seismic interpretation software program. During May and June, teams of students worked full time with scientists from the Illinois State Geological Survey, shooting, processing and interpreting seismic profiles, conducting electrical resistivity soundings, logging boreholes, and obtaining vertical seismic profiles of boreholes. In total the students helped obtain about 20 kilometers of high-resolution (3.2 meter geophone spacing) P-Wave, 7 kilometers of high-resolution SH-Wave, and 3 kilometers of resistivity data. Additionally students helped log and six boreholes advanced at critical location along the geophysical lines. Each student became a specialist in part of the project and helped author the project report. The investigation revealed a filled subglacial tunnel valley providing hydraulic connection between the Sangamon River and the aquifer in the Mahomet Valley Aquifer System. The scientific results of this collaboration are reported elsewhere at this meeting and are contained in an Illinois State Geological Survey Open File Report.