The Maryland Geological Survey (MGS) Drill Cuttings Collection consists of washed and unwashed cuttings from drilling sites throughout Maryland. The collection includes chips from rock drillings as well as cuttings from unconsolidated Coastal Plain sediment drilling. There are approximately 2,600 boxes (15.5” x 5.5” x 3.4”) in the collection. Each box contains between 20-50 envelopes, bags, or vials of cuttings. Thanks to U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program (NGGDPP) grants, approximately 1,999 boxes of drill cuttings containing over 43,500 envelopes have been inventoried as of August 2021. The Drill Cuttings Collection is now primarily stored in the MGS Core (and Cuttings) [...]
Summary
The Maryland Geological Survey (MGS) Drill Cuttings Collection consists of washed and unwashed cuttings from drilling sites throughout Maryland. The collection includes chips from rock drillings as well as cuttings from unconsolidated Coastal Plain sediment drilling. There are approximately 2,600 boxes (15.5” x 5.5” x 3.4”) in the collection. Each box contains between 20-50 envelopes, bags, or vials of cuttings. Thanks to U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program (NGGDPP) grants, approximately 1,999 boxes of drill cuttings containing over 43,500 envelopes have been inventoried as of August 2021.
The Drill Cuttings Collection is now primarily stored in the MGS Core (and Cuttings) Library in the basement of MGS’s Kenneth M. Weaver building. Due to space constraints, some cuttings are stored in the basement of the Weaver Annex building. The majority of the drill cuttings were collected by well drillers and MGS geoscientists. Some sets of cuttings were donated to MGS by other researchers, other government agencies, and geotechnical or environmental consultants. Many of the wells and/or boreholes from which the cuttings originated are referenced in published MGS reports.
Prior to the Kenneth M. Weaver building, the Drill Cuttings Collection was stored off-site in a building that lacked proper climate and pest control. Many of the boxes and the enclosed paper sediment bags or envelopes have weathered and aged and fall apart easily. Furthermore, labels on the outside of the boxes, identifying the contents and additional collection information, have faded.
Only minimal preservation activities were completed on a small part of the collection following the collection’s relocation to the Kenneth M. Weaver building. As a result, many of the boxes remain in poor condition and have continued to deteriorate. General collection metadata was submitted to the National Digital Catalog (NDC) in 2009, but detailed metadata was never created and no further preservation activities were started for this collection until 2017.
Thanks to funding from the USGS NGGDPP, MGS began the preservation of the drill cuttings collection in 2017-2018 as part of its FY2017 NGGDPP grant tasks. That preservation work continued during the FY2019 (2019-2021) NGGDPP grant cycle. To date, MGS has 1) purchased boxes and envelopes to re-house a portion of this collection; 2) created an internal drill cuttings database; 3) performed a detailed inventory on over a thousand boxes of drill cuttings and populated the internal database with metadata records; 4) submitted metadata records to the National Digital Catalog; and 5) relabeled and repackaged cuttings envelopes/bags and boxes as needed. The detailed inventory of the Drill Cuttings Collection involves a systematic approach to 1) identify and record the status, attributes, quantities, and storage location of each set of cuttings; and 2) importantly, match the cuttings to borehole locations and related documentation.
During the most recent NGGDPP grant cycle (FY2020; 2020-2021), 602 boxes containing thousands of cuttings were inventoried and re-packaged for preservation. An additional 447 boxes were partially cataloged. MGS successfully correlated 701 boxes, containing over 13,000 envelopes of drill cuttings, to 246 unique borehole locations. As of August 2022 (including work from previous grant periods), approximately 3,046 boxes of cuttings have been inventoried of which approximately 1,955 of these boxes of cuttings have been linked to 895 borehole locations. Funding received as part of the current FY2021 NGGDPP grants (2021-2023) will support the continuation of the above preservation activities.
The name of this collection, "Collection of Drill Cuttings from MD", has been revised from the original (”Collection of Rock Cuttings from MD”) to better communicate the materials in the collection.
For more information about the Drill Cuttings Collection, please contact MGS at (410) 554-5500.
Contact MGS (410-554-5500) to request access and more information. Generally, the collection is available only for viewing at MGS. See additional contact information at: http://www.mgs.md.gov/about/contact.html
