Sediments of Port Eliza Cave provide a record of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) on VancouverIsland that has important implications for human migration along the debated coastal migration route. Lithofacies changes from nonglacial diamict to glacial laminated silt and clay and till, then a return to nonglacial conditions with oxidized clay, colluvial block beds, and speleothems, along with radiocarbon and U/Th dates, define glacial-nonglacial transitions. Scanning electron microscope studies and clay mineralogy confirm that the laminated fines represent glaciation. Preglacial faunal evidence shows a diverse range from small species, including birds, fish, vole, and marmot, to larger species, such as mountain goat. Pollen data from the same unit show a cold, dry tundra environment with sparse trees. Deglaciation occurred prior to an age of 12.3 ka B.P. based on dated mountain goat bone. These data support the viability of the coastal migration route for humans prior to ~16 ka B.P. and then as early as ~13 ka B.P.
Core description is a fundamental step in the reservoir characterization process. Quality core descriptions are not only important for depositional and diagenetic understandings, but also critical to the development of sequence stratigraphic frameworks. This can have significant effects on development strategies for a reservoir through their impact on geological and simulation models. There are increasing pressures to integrate large volumes of data rapidly and efficiently into geological models, especially in development and production settings. Traditional methods of core description using pen and paper are generally slow to produce the quality-controlled digital data required for geologic models. Digital core description has long been seen as a potential tool to speed up the integration of core data. However digital description tools have often been found to be cumbersome and slow, leading to questions about the practicality of the process and the reluctance of many describers to use the tool. In a recent effort to describe a large amount of core as part of a large carbonate reservoir characterization study, initial efforts were carried out using traditional methods while later phases of the study used direct digital description. Due to the extensive footage of core that was to be described a large group of describers, with varied backgrounds and experience levels, were tasked to complete the work in a timely manner. The study was divided into two phases. In the first phase descriptions were carried out in a traditional manner with pen and paper and later digitized, while in the second phase a major effort was undertaken to introduce direct digital description. It was therefore of key importance to establish systems that would guide the describers in the information that they collected and to ensure consistency in the descriptions. Using a digital data entry system helped ensure consistency in description as well as integration of other data such as log and porosity/permeability data into a convenient format that could be viewed by the describer. While traditional methods were found to be much faster initially the resulting product was only available for analysis after digitization had been carried out in the office, in some cases months later, and was only usable after quality control editing, which was often not carried out by the describers themselves. Due to varying styles of description different characteristics of the core were emphasized by different describers and often described differently, creating challenges later when the data was analyzed. In this paper we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of traditional methods compared to our attempts at direct digital core description. Here we will show that the
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