Hi all, looking for some information from any drillers out there. I'm an intern working for NYSERDA this summer in New York (this is a government org), and I'm looking for ways to reduce the cost of geothermal drilling in the hopes of making it more affordable and thereby increasing its rate of adoption. I've actually found some interesting technologies/methods, but currently I'm trying to model these developments economically (to see which ones are really viable). There is a lot of information that I'm looking for, but currently something that would be really helpful to me is this: What are the odds that bedrock is going to be at a given depth? Could any of you give me just some anecdotal percentages for a given depth range? For example, right now I'm just guessing that bedrock depth might go something like this: Shallow Bedrock (<10 feet) - 5% Medium depth Bedrock (10-200 feet) - 65% Deep Bedrock (>200 feet) - 30% Obviously I somewhat doubt that this is remotely accurate, and I'm not even sure if it makes sense to try to model bedrock this way. Anyhow, thanks for your input, it's much appreciated. Best, Rob
Not a driller, however. You can usually get drill logs from where people have done wells from health departments. They could give you what your looking for.
I have looked at those, but my problem is that I am not modelling for a specific location, and I don't have the time/resources to analyze a geological map of the entire state for average depth to bedrock, so I was hoping that some drillers may just have a feel for this off the top of their head.
New York City and new York state will never be the same. It is a big state with varying lithology from the coastal plain to the Hudson valley and then on up to the falls. Your specific spot on this big blue marble is everything. No averaging or puter modeling will answer your query. Only a driller that is local to the spot in question. Hope this helps. Eric
Okay, well if any drillers would like to give input on the areas to where they are local, that's cool too. All I'm looking for is, let's say you head to a job and start drilling. At some point, you hit bedrock (or don't). What fraction of those jobs do you think you encounter bedrock at shallower than 10 feet? Between 10 and 200 feet? Deeper than 200 ft? [And for anyone who does answer, to what area are you local?]