Devine Test Site

A research facility of the Bureau of Economic Geology

The Devine Test Site is a 100-acre research facility available for subsurface investigation and test well experimentation by industry and academia. It is located about 40 miles southwest of San Antonio in Medina County, and is accessible via Interstate 35 and U.S. Hwy. 90. The site is a research facility of the Bureau of Economic Geology in the Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin.

The Devine Test Site hosts three 3,000-ft test wells, two of which being completed with fiberglass casing to allow for testing of borehole electromagnetic sources and receivers. Four shallow (100–200 ft) steel-cased holes are available for borehole-based seismic energy sources and other instrumentation. In addition, four shallow (330-ft) fiberglass-based wells with permanent distributed acoustic/temperature-sensing fiber optics and electrical resistivity tomography arrays have recently been added.

The site's lithology allows investigation of diverse types of sediments and seals, including basal transgressive sandstones typical of many continental areas (Hosston), transmissive carbonate reservoirs (Edwards and Glen Rose), moderately transmissive sandstones with significant local capacity and correlatives regionally (Olmos group), and high-quality mudrock seals (Eagle Ford and Navarro). The area is gently dipping and unfaulted, and the regional basement is at about 7,000 ft.

The Devine Test Site is available to academic and industry researchers on a periodic basis for a nominal fee to conduct experimentation and testing of equipment and techniques. For more information on reserving the facility, please contact Mark W. Blount at 512-471-1509 or at mark.blount@beg.utexas.edu.

Mark W. Blount
Site Manager
mark.blount@beg.utexas.edu
512-471-1509

Bureau of Economic Geology
The University of Texas at Austin
10100 Burnet Rd., Bldg. 130
Austin, Texas 78758-4445