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Natasha Hendrick was interviewed in 2001 for the Interviews with Australian scientists series. By viewing the interviews in this series, or reading the transcripts and extracts, your students can begin to appreciate Australia's contribution to the growth of scientific knowledge.
The following summary of Hendrick's career sets the context for the extract chosen for these teachers notes. The extract covers her PhD studies and her work mapping coal seams using seismic data. Use the focus questions that accompany the extract to promote discussion among your students.
Natasha Hendrick was born in 1972 in Brisbane. She received a Bachelor of Applied Science (Hons) in geophysics in 1993 from the University of Queensland. Her research investigated ways in which accurate acoustic impedance profiles could be recovered from seismic data.
As an Australia-at-large Rhodes Scholar in 1993, Hendrick joined the Geophysics Research Group in the Department of Engineering Sciences at Oxford University. She worked there for 12 months and was involved with using seismic wave-guides for the investigation of fault mapping in the North Sea. At the end of this time she returned to Australia to broaden her practical knowledge of geophysics and develop a better understanding of how her research could best be used in the oil, gas and coal exploration industries. For six months in 1994 she was a research assistant in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Queensland where she focused on seismic processing and imaging techniques.
From 1994-97 Hendrick worked for a seismic processing company, Digicon Geophysical Limited (now known as Veritas DGC) in Pinjarra Hills, Queensland. She returned to full-time study at the University of Queensland in 1997 where her PhD research was on multi-component seismic wavefield separation.
In 2001 Hendrick began working as a senior geophysicist with MIM Exploration and is responsible for finding new ways to enhance and use the seismic data acquired from the coalfields of central Queensland.
A hot topic for a PhD: multicomponent seismic exploration
What work did you do for your PhD?
It was all about multicomponent seismic – still a hot topic in the industry, generating a lot of interest. It differs from traditional seismic in how the soundwaves are recorded. Traditional seismic records them on a single microphone, called either a geophone when we are recording on land, or a hydrophone when we are recording in water. Multicomponent seismic records them on three microphones, orientated perpendicular to each other. It means that as well as recording the amplitude of the soundwave that comes to the surface of the Earth, we can also record its particle motion.
Particle motion is important because several different types of waves travel through the Earth. Two really important types are compressional (P) waves and shear (S) waves, and because each of these waves has a different particle motion orientation, by recording the direction of particle motion at the surface we can try to distinguish the compressional waves from the shear waves. When we are looking for natural gas or oil, our target is often a gas or a liquid. And because the two wave types respond differently to travelling through gas, liquid or solid, in seismic exploration we want to use the two wave types in partnership to help us determine whether we are actually looking at an oil or gas reservoir.
Did you have many field trips during your PhD?
There were not a lot of field trips for my research in particular, because most of it is computational programming. However, I have always been involved in the field trips for undergraduate students. I enjoy getting out and helping the undergrads realise the practical applications of what they’re learning in the field of geophysics, the reasons for learning these things. So that was my release.
Also, Steve Hearn has been really great in putting me in contact with people around the world. True, I’ve worked and studied at the University of Queensland, but in my research I network with people all over the world. I talk with young researchers in Europe, and I have contacts in America who provide data for my experiments and offer me technical assistance whenever I need it.
Tracking a different seam: seismic exploration for coal
You recently returned to full-time work, while still finishing off your PhD. Where are you working now?
I started full-time work in April of this year, working in coal seismic as a senior geophysicist for MIM Exploration. Seismic exploration for coal is a relatively new application. It has a slightly different emphasis from oil and gas applications, primarily because coal is only a few hundred metres below the surface of the Earth, whereas oil and gas is typically a few thousand metres below the surface.
The other difference is that whereas we tend to have to go and find oil and gas, in general we already know where the coal is, and what we’re doing with seismic in the coal environment is trying to map the coal seam. Mapping any discontinuities in the seam is going to make for more efficient mining, with better mine plans before the miners get underground. It’s also going to improve the safety of the mining environment, helping to avoid roof collapses and so forth.
I suppose some of the machinery used in coalmining will rely heavily upon these sorts of techniques, as well.
Yes, certainly. One of the techniques that MIM Exploration, in particular, uses in mining coal is longwall mining, in which an automated shearing machine mines a panel about 250 metres across. It is set up to follow the coal seam, and because coal is a much softer rock than the sandstone and shales sitting around it, the machine needs to stay on line and track along the seam. If the coal seam suddenly disappears or jumps up or down, and the shearing tool is suddenly cutting harder rock, you can damage a lot of equipment. It is also unsafe when that happens.
My work with MIM involves the type of research I really enjoy – not purely theoretical but very much applied. I get to take the theory of things that have worked before in the oil and gas industry, and manipulate them and modify techniques to make them work for the coal industry. This is research to help design practical solutions, using theory that probably already exists but manipulating it to make a new application.
An edited transcript of the full interview can be found at http://www.science.org.au/scientists/interviews/nh.
Focus questions
Select activities that are most appropriate for your lesson plan or add your own. You can also encourage students to identify key issues in the preceding extract and devise their own questions or topics for discussion.
seismic data
geophysics
mining exploration
geologic discontinuities
coal
compressional waves
shear waves
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