Remote Induction Sounding of Hanna Underground Coal Burn II, Phase 1, Employing Pseudonoise/ Cross-Correlation Techniques
An underground coal gasification site near Hanna, WY, was remotely sounded with an induction system at the surface one year after the burn. An estimated 1800 tons (40 000 cu. ft.) of coal 275 ft. deep had been converted to low-Btu gas. The wideband loop-loop system employed pseudonoise signals at the transmitter and cross-correlation over 0-50 kHz at the receiver to obtain time signatures in the field. These time-domain impulse responses were converted to frequency responses on a Fourier analyzer system for ease of interpretation. Single-frequency responses at approximately 1 and 5 kHz were extracted from these wideband responses for further investigation. Skindepth calculations showed these to be effective for probing at these depths. Fou in-line traverses conducted over the Hanna II, Phase 1 Site produced strong anomalies of at least 8-to-1 at approximately 5 kHz. Interpretation of these anomalies agrees quite well in location and shape with chemical modeling estimates from north to south. However, these soundings support the conclusion that the burn may have protruded another 5 m to the west from the chemical estimate. The centroid of the burn region was obtained by averaging anomaly values weighted by their location.
Electromagnetic modeling of reflections inside an in situ gasified coal seam
As an aid in the design of an electromagnetic system for the detection, monitoring, and mapping of the burn front of an underground (in situ) coal gasification process, an analytical model has been developed that will predict the electromagnetic field reflected from the gasified portion of the coal seam. The coal and gasified section have been modeled electrically as lossy media, surrounded above and below by relatively high conducting overburden and underburden. Vertical and horizontal electric and magnetic dipoles have been investigated, utilizing a geometrical optics formulation which also takes into account the physical roughness of the coal-overburden (underburden) and coal-gasified section boundaries. Indications are that a swept frequency monitoring system is capable of locating the burn front of the in situ gasification process, with the vertical electric dipole being the most attractive element.
Time and Heritage
As a historian studying what can be considered a form of intellectual history, I have slowly come to adopt Michel de Certeau’s observation made at the end of the 1980s that ‘objectifying the past, for the last three centuries, has undoubtedly left unconsidered time within a discipline that has continued to use it as a taxonomic instrument’. To a certain degree, time has become commonplace for the historian who has preserved or instrumentalized it. It is not considered because it is inconceivable, but because we do not think of it or, more simply, we do not think about it. As a historian attempting to pay attention to the time I’m living in, I have thus, like many others, noticed the swift development of the category of the present until it has become obvious that the present is omnipresent. This is what I refer to here as ‘presentism’.