A geotechnical report produced prior to a construction project can be of great use to a driller if it contains the right information. The details in these geotech reports can often give a drilling contractor all the information needed to determine the requirements to drill successfully — everything from fluid design to tooling selection. Of course, not every report has every necessary detail, but many offer as least some useful clues.
For example, few have information on soil chemistry regarding soluble salts, or chemicals that easily dissolve in water and can increase salt content. Typically, geotech reports offer only hints to this type of information — hints that we will have to pick through to find the information that we need. In this article and a follow-up one, I hope to show you what you can still glean from these more “minimalist” geology reports. Here, we help you get started with geotechnical reports, and then dive right into the bore logs.