Tampa and the entire state of Florida is home to some unique conditions; conditions that are very friendly to sinkhole formation. In fact, Florida is one of the most sinkhole prone regions on the planet due to our unique geology.

So, what causes sinkholes and how can companies such as Amdrill, Inc. help with sinkhole investigations? Tampa natives can read on to learn more!

Why is Florida So Prone to Sinkhole Formation?

The state of Florida has some unique geology that makes this peninsula prone to sinkhole formation. While many other regions of the country are situated atop a dense type of bedrock, such as granite, Florida is located atop limestone bedrock. Overlaying this limestone bedrock is very sandy soil, which can hold a lot of water and it is also highly permeable when it comes to underground water flow.

Unfortunately, limestone is prone to dissolving when it’s exposed to even mild acids, including the acid that’s found in acid rain and even in groundwater. This can result in the erosion of the limestone, which dissolves over the years to form a large underground void or air cavity. Think of it as a “bubble” in the earth. The weight of the overlaying rock and soil can ultimately cause the void to collapse, resulting in the formation of a sinkhole.

Of course, Florida also sees lots of rain, which means there’s more groundwater, a faster rate of limestone erosion and there’s also a potential for greater pressures and added weight in the land that overlays these underground voids. This can have added weight can prove to be too much, causing the earth to collapse as a sinkhole forms.

How Do You Perform Sinkhole Investigations?

Tampa natives routinely call Amdrill, Inc. for help with sinkhole investigations. An investigation may be initiated after a property owner notices changes in the terrain, such as rapidly-forming depressions or other shifts in the earth. The signs of an impending sinkhole formation are most obvious when you have a solid structure, particularly one made of inflexible materials such as masonry, cement and concrete. While wood structures have a small amount of give, these inflexible materials tend to crack and shift in response to the ground movement. So, it’s not uncommon to see cracks and other signs of damage in an area of a structure.

When a sinkhole is suspected, the property owner will typically call a sinkhole remediation and investigation team. The efforts may include the use of ground-penetrating radar, which evaluates the earth’s density, identifying the location of underground voids. Our geotechnical drilling teams can also come in to perform drilling operations, as it’s very apparent to the drill operator when the drill bit strikes an underground void because there is a sudden lack of resistance and friction.

Drilling can be used to can determine the exact depth and dimensions of the underground void. The bore holes can also be used as access points for pumping a filler material into the void, such as concrete. Once filled, the hole will no longer be prone to collapse. In cases where the void is extremely large, any overlaying structures may be reinforced with stabilization rods that can be penetrated down into the bedrock (with the help of our drilling teams.) This way, the structure will remain standing, even if the surrounding ground falls away.

*Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of Amdrill Inc*

Tampa developers, environmental experts or companies involved in extracting natural resources such as oil and natural gas, may turn to a geotechnical drilling firm like Amdrill, Inc. for help, as one of our many specialties is marine drilling. Tampa Bay marine drilling projects may entail several different challenges so for this reason, it’s important to have an experienced team of technicians overseeing the drilling efforts.

What is Marine Drilling?

Tampa natives may turn to an environmental drilling firm like Amdrill Inc. for help with a marine drilling project, which is the term for any drilling project that involves a marine environment, whether it’s an ocean, a bay, a river, a lake, a pond or wetlands.

Marine drilling can be utilized for several different projects, including:

• Determining the composition and integrity of the seabed
• Sampling the sediment and the bedrock that lies beneath
• Evaluating the environment for the presence and prevalence of contaminants
• Drilling wells for gas companies, oil companies or energy companies
• Drilling bore holes and monitoring wells
• Evaluating the depth and extent of water saturation in a location
• Evaluating the depth and integrity of the bedrock
• Drilling holes for anchors for a larger structure such as a wind turbine, dock, bridge or another construction project.

These are just some of the many Tampa marine drilling projects that Amdrill, Inc. has performed. Of course, marine drilling is associated with lots of challenges. One challenge involves the very act of drilling underwater or in a wetlands environment. This requires the usage of a boat, barge or amphibious vehicle. Wetlands and shallows can be quite challenging in cases when you require a large, heavy drill for the project, as large drills require a large boat, barge or amphibious vehicle, but this can create challenges since you risk “bottoming out” and experiencing other challenges maneuvering the appropriate equipment into position.

Wetlands and marine environments also feature delicate ecosystems; many wetlands are even considered “protected” environments.  So, it’s important that you work with a company that can take measures to prevent and limit any damage to the surrounding environment. This can create some additional obstacles in a marine drilling project. In areas, adjacent to a marine or wetlands environment, your drilling team will need to ensure that lubricants, drill cuttings and vehicles do not cause any damage.

Accessibility and environmental concerns aside, you also have challenges associated with the dynamic nature of a water environment, with changing tides and water depths, which can complicate the drilling project. Simply keeping the drilling rig in a stationary position can be tremendously challenging amidst the waves and tides. So, you need a company that has the right vehicles and the right technicians who know how to ensure that the drilling effort goes as planned. We have also encountered issues when drilling at depths, as the pressures found in deep water environments can have some unique impacts on the drilling equipment.

For these reasons, it’s vital to trust your project to an experienced Tampa marine drilling company like Amdrill, Inc.

*Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of Amdrill Inc*

 

Tampa geotechnical drilling firms such as Amdrill, Inc. frequently perform geotechnical services, which can include drilling efforts which are an important aspect of the surveying process. The integrity of the soil and underlying bedrock at a site will have a major impact on the overall stability of the site. Other wildcards, such as highly saturated soil, a high-water table or underground voids, can complicate matters significantly, resulting in the potential for serious instability or even a catastrophic collapse.

Several different clients utilize our geotechnical services. Tampa engineers, including civil engineers, along with developers, property owners and other companies (particularly companies in the energy sector) call upon our expert technicians to provide geotechnical drilling services in a wide range of environments, including on land, in remote forested locations, in wetlands and in marine or ocean environments.

What Are the Uses for Geotechnical Services?

Tampa drilling technicians with Amdrill, Inc. provide geotechnical services that span a number of different areas. Some of the clients who contract our firm include the following.

Civil engineers – call upon our drilling technicians to help gather key data from a site so they can solve an engineering challenge, whether it’s with a canal, levee, bridge, roadway or drainage system.

Construction and building engineers – who are designing large commercial and industrial buildings, multi-unit office or residential structures, bridges, canals, communications towers, wind turbines, or other structures, particularly those that are especially large, tall, heavy or otherwise unique. We can gather data from the soil and bedrock that allows experts to evaluate the suitability of a site.

Construction firms and developers – who need help installing stabilization rods into the bedrock to create a “deep foundation” or to stabilize an unstable structure. We can also assist with extracting samples from the foundation if it’s suspected that defective or otherwise problematic building materials are present.

Sinkhole investigation and sinkhole remediation companies – that require help accessing an underground void that they wish to fill with cement to prevent a collapse. Some remediation efforts may also involve penetrating down into the underlying bedrock and inserting stabilization rods to help support a structure that’s overlaying the potential sinkhole site.

Environmental firms – that require help evaluating a site for the presence, nature or extent of contamination. This can include evaluating for the depth of contamination, the precise location of the contamination, and whether the contaminants have reached underground aquifers, wells or other water supplies.

Notably, Amdrill, Inc. has lots of different drilling rigs, which can be placed on a variety of different vehicles, including boats, barges, trucks, ATVs, remote controlled vehicles and even vehicles with tank-like tracks, which are ideal for rugged, hard-to-access areas. So, there is virtually no area that’s inaccessible to our Tampa geotechnical service providers.

*Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of Amdrill Inc*

Tampa engineers may turn to a geotechnical drilling firm like Amdrill, Inc. for assistance with a foundation drilling project. Foundation drilling can be utilized to improve a structure’s stability, particularly in areas with less-than-ideal ground composition. Foundation drilling can be performed on existing structures that require some added stability or on new construction projects.

Tampa developers and engineers may contact the expert drilling technicians at Amdrill, Inc. to assist with a project involving a building or another structure, such as a wind turbine, communications tower or bridge.

Foundation drilling near Tampa involves drilling at the site of a structure’s foundation, typically penetrating down into the bedrock. Once the bedrock is accessed, metal rods may be inserted and affixed to the foundation. This transfers the structural loads deeper into the earth, reducing some of the load that is placed upon the foundation.

This type of foundation, known as a “deep foundation” can be ideal for areas with soil instability, as is commonly the case in Florida, where we have an abundance of wetlands and sandy soil which can necessitate the creation of a deep foundation, particularly for large structures.

Florida also has a high-water table, meaning that the ground is saturated with water at a fairly shallow depth. This is one of the reasons why Florida homes generally do not have basements. As a result, you can end up with a situation where you cannot create a sufficiently large and deep foundation or footing.  This results in more widespread usage of foundation drilling for the placement of anchor rods that shift the loads down below the shallow subsurface layer and into the bedrock.

We may also perform foundation drilling in cases where the integrity of the concrete and the underlying earth may be in question. We can drill and extract a cylinder of concrete (better known as a core sample) from the structure’s foundation, which is then sent out for testing to evaluate the quality and strength of the building materials.

In other cases, if the foundation appears to be cracking and deteriorating in an abnormal manner and the integrity of the underlying earth is in question, our geotechnical drilling crews can drill into the ground to extract core samples and perform testing to determine the density and other ground attributes. In some cases, we may find that there is an underground void – a potential sinkhole site – which requires remediation.

*Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of Amdrill Inc*

Tampa is home to a diverse range of companies and organizations that may seek out help from a drilling company such as Amdrill, Inc., as we specialize in environmental and geotechnical drilling projects.

But most who think of drilling automatically envision one of Texas’ iconic oil drills or they may think of drilling a water well. And while these are two very common types of drilling, there are a wide variety of other projects that may benefit from environmental or geotechnical drilling services. And that’s precisely what we’ll explore in today’s article from Amdrill, Inc.

What Are the Most Common Uses for Drilling?

Tampa clients turn to our geotechnical drilling experts for assistance with a variety of different environments and locations, from undeveloped land, to densely populated urban environments, to wetlands or even marine environments.

We work with several different clients, ranging from builders and developers, to architects, engineers and civil engineers, along with conservation and environmental groups, sinkhole investigation/remediation firms, and energy companies, amongst many others. Here are a few different projects that we may be called in to perform.

• Drilling to determine soil composition, the stability of the earth and the integrity of the underlying bedrock in a location
• Identifying and exploring underground voids that could collapse to form a sinkhole
• Extracting sediment and soil samples that can be sent out for testing for contamination
• Drilling to evaluate the depth of the water table, soil water saturation levels and identify underground aquifers
• Extracting samples and generating data for analysis to determine the suitability of a location as a building site
• Drilling to determine the quality or condition of a foundation or other cement structure
• Gathering data for scientists and environmental experts who can evaluate data and sample attributes

Drilling has many different purposes and functions. We work with many different clients, including builders, developers, civil and structural engineers, scientists and environmental experts, energy companies, well and data collection companies, property owners and many others.

If you need help with a project that can benefit from drilling, Tampa natives can turn to the experts at Amdrill, Inc., as we have a wide variety of different drilling rigs and vehicles, which enables us to drill in virtually any location and for any purpose!

*Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of Amdrill Inc*