The Use of Measuring While Drilling and Wireline Logging to Identify the Geological Strata in Qatar
Abstract
In the field of engineering and construction in the Middle East, it is a common practice to
economize a geotechnical investigation using a conventional scope, based on the lowest
price. This tends to compromise the project integrity by either under- or over-designing
the structure. However, a carefully considered ground investigation and engineering
evaluation should be practiced in the early stages, to reduce the unknowns related to
geology, ground strength and behavior, ultimately optimizing the geotechnical design,
and project constructability and efficiency. This begs the question of whether 'cheap
and conventional' can ever equate to 'quality' and what can be done to improve the
geotechnical investigations. This paper focuses on ground investigations on rocks and
presents the key advantages of utilizing instrumented drilling boreholes in combination
with rotary coring boreholes, to collect accurate and good quality data on an accelerated
schedule. The study identifies the bias of a conventional geotechnical investigation,
highlighting how this can be reduced through the use of instrumented drilling and
wireline logging, and how the data collected can define the typical trends observed in the
Qatar stratigraphy through correlation from instrumented and rotary coring boreholes
drilled in several locations across Qatar. The findings have significant implications on
revolutionizing the current ground investigations in Qatar, providing a geotechnical
investigation alternative that delivers more complete and high-quality data.