Bureau Hosts Field Conference for Decision Makers

Dr. Chock Woodruff discusses Central Texas geology and field-conference stops during his Adventures in Virtual Reality presentation at the Bureau.   Dr. Bill Fisher, Director of the Jackson School of Geosciences at U.T., talks to Fred Cantu, Chief of Staff for State Representative Juan M. Escobar. Dr. Fisher gave a presentation titled Geoscience and Public Policy in Texas.   Participants traveled to the Barton Springs greenbelt to view an outcrop of the Edwards Formation, the host formation for the subsurface Edwards aquifer. David Johns, City of Austin, and Drs. Sue Hovorka and Bridget Scanlon led discussions on the Edwards aquifer.     At the Hanson Aggregates quarry, field conference participants had a blast—actually a series of 14 blasts programmed to occur fractions of a second apart, which fragmented more than 350,000 tons of limestone for processing into aggregate.   Brian Vauter, Geologist and Manager of Natural Bridge Caverns, leads the group through the caverns. The group also heard presentations on research being conducted here by Drs. Jay Banner and MaryLynn Musgrove and students from U.T.   Anadarko Petroleum gave a tour of Giddings oil field. Decision makers were able to observe preparations for a hydraulic fracture job that will increase production at this well. Alcoa gave a tour of the Sandow lignite mine. Pictured is an area previously mined for lignite that has now been reclaimed. Dr. Alan Dutton, BEG, gave a presentation on modeling the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer and Bill Mullican, TWDB, presented highlights of the Texas Water Plan.