Alpha Geoscience was established in 1997 to offer high-sensitivity geophysical expertise to the environmental industry, the ordnance clearance market and the engineering business, as an alternative to intrusive investigations.

The services include, high sensitivity magnetics, time or frequency domain electro-magnetics, resistivity mapping, ground penetrating radar and seismic techniques. These services combined with the digital processing of the data to produce colour images of the site and the interpretation of the data gives high-resolution detail of the sub surface on the site. This data can be imported into Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for future reference and auditable documentation.

ENVIRONMENTAL
Geophysics is eminently suitable for the location of a number of environmental targets in the sub surface. As geophysics is non-intrusive it has no environmental impact during the survey and is able to locate items or pollution from near surface to tens of metres into the sub surface.

Mapping Buried Structures:
One of the difficulties on some environmental sites is the location of buried services, tanks and the like, which are not recorded on any site maps. Alpha Geoscience offers the service of locating these items in the sub surface by using geophysical tools such as time domain EM or ground penetrating radar to give position and depth.

Site Assessments:
Some environmental sites are extensive in nature and require assessment to determine what is present in the sub surface before further work can proceed on the site and construction can take place.

Alpha Geoscience offers a full array of geophysical tools for the large-scale site assessment, depending on the targets and depths of interest. These could range from time domain EM and/or magnetics for services or waste disposal sites, to resistivity or conductivity for mapping the changes in the soil or sub surface conductivities that could be related to pollution plumes.

Detection of Chemical Pollutants:
Alpha Geoscience has had experience in locating and mapping chemical contamination plumes in the sub surface. Generally the tools will be either resistivity or conductivity mapping but there have been examples where other techniques such as cross-hole radar and time domain EM have been used. As each project is different in contamination, geology, surface topography and infrastructure, these all need to be assessed before a recommended survey technique can be recommended.

ORDNANCE
Alpha GeoScience has combined with BACTEC South East Asia to provice a full suite of services for the location of buried ordnance or unexploded ordnance (UXO). Ther services offered by BACTEC can be viewed on their website www.bactec.com.au

ENGINEERING
Geophysics has been used for a vast number of applications in the engineering field, from site investigations to assessing the quality of reinforcing in concrete. These services can be divided into the following categories:

Civil Engineering:
Geophysical tools can be used for geotechnical investigations including earth structures, ground hardness for excavation, position of services etc.

Mine Engineering:
In mine engineering, geophysics can be used to assist in the location of zones of weakness, faulting, fracturing, rock stratigraphy and potential mine hazards.

Construction:
Geophysics can be used in the assessment of a construction site to determine the previous uses of the site and the activity, which occurred in the sub-surface including the location of buried services, underground storage tanks etc.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Management expertise is available from Alpha Geoscience staff to advise on geophysical techniques for ordnance and environmental project. Typical capabilities include:

Provision of advice on conduct or management of site assessments;
Represent, on behalf of a client, auditor or agency, at negotiations and project management meetings, to give technical advice on the project;
Advise on appropriate methodologies and techniques for the operation of major projects;
Provision of quality assurance services, including the undertaking of fieldwork, if required, or supervise work undertaken by a separate contractor.

REPORTING
Alpha Geoscience will provide a comprehensive reporting process, which provides full information of the work undertaken, to the client and other authorities, where required. The report will provide detail regarding every aspect of the project.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Alpha Geoscience is involved in a number of geophysical Research and Development Projects as the project managers. Alpha Geoscience has the capability to assist clients on all facets of research and development for the projects, from obtaining suitable companies or organisations to undertake the research, to supervising the final manufacturing of the product.

Timothy Pippett has had extensive experience in the project management of research and development projects in the geophysical field. These projects include:

• The development of a magnetic susceptibility meter for the mineral exploration industry.
• The development of a high sensitivity magnetometer for the environmental and ordnance location industries.
• Grass roots research on a project to use geophysics to locate DNAPL (dense non-aqueous phase liquids) in the sub-surface for the CRC for Waste Management and Pollution Control.
• Development of a multi-sensor geophysical instrumentation packages for the horizon control of a coal-mining machine.

TRAINING
The staff of Alpha Geoscience have undertaken training courses in magnetics and ground penetrating radar in Australia and the South Pacific. The duration, level of awareness, and course outline is determined in consultation with the client. The courses are generally aimed at the data acquisition personnel with an emphasis on collecting high quality data.