Core logging, three holes, 212 metres, 424 intervals

Geology research poster example

Three drill cores through one sandstone unit, laid out as an A0 portrait board with a coloured sidebar rail carrying the title, abstract and core access note. The rail keeps the identity of the board on the left and leaves the full right hand column for the logs and the analysis.

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BU
Two hundred and twelve metres of core: porosity and unit thickness in three holes through the Warrigal Sandstone
J. Radcliffe ¹, M. Osei ¹, C. Delgado ¹ ²
1 Department of Earth Sciences, Brackenford University · 2 Basin Analysis Group, Brackenford University
Abstract
Three cored holes 1.8 to 3.1 km apart were logged through the full thickness of the Warrigal Sandstone: 68 m in hole C1, 74 m in C2 and 70 m in C3, 212 m in total. Grain size and porosity were recorded at every 0.5 m, giving 424 logged intervals. Four informal units are present in all three holes. Unit B, a clean medium grained sandstone 14 to 19 m thick, carries porosity of 18% to 24% in every hole and is the only unit that does. No other unit reaches 15% in any hole. Unit B thickens and cleans to the north east, and its base is the only sharp contact in the section, which makes it the one surface that can be correlated between holes without interpretation.
Core access
The three holes were drilled under a groundwater investigation and the core is held at the state core library, which allowed the plugs to be cut and gave access to the original driller logs and the gamma traces used for the correlation check. Plug analysis was done in the university rock properties laboratory. No part of this work was funded by, or reported to, a party with an interest in the field. The state core library staff cut and photographed every plug interval before it left the shed, so the sampling positions can be checked against the core photographs by anyone who asks for them. The gamma traces were rerun by the library on the original tools rather than taken from the driller reports, which is why the correlation check in the methods is against a trace of known vintage and not against a number copied from a completion report.
Why three holes rather than one
A single cored hole through a sandstone gives a porosity log and nothing else. It cannot say whether the good interval is a sheet that extends across the field or a lens that happens to sit under the drill rig, and that is the only question a development decision turns on. Three holes across 3.1 km is the smallest set that can distinguish the two, because two holes with the same interval could still be joined by a channel, while three that are not collinear cannot. The holes here were drilled for a groundwater investigation and cored in full rather than chipped, which is unusual and is the reason a 0.5 m log was possible at all. The interval spacing matters more than it looks: at 1 m the two thinnest units in this section would be represented by two readings each, and the sharp base of unit B, which is the feature that correlates most cleanly between the holes, would be invisible in two of the three. The cost of the finer log is two extra days of core shed time per hole, which is the cheapest thing in the whole programme.
METHODS
Holes. Three fully cored holes drilled through the complete unit: C1 at 68 m, C2 at 74 m and C3 at 70 m, spaced 1.8 to 3.1 km apart and not collinear, so a trend direction can be fixed rather than assumed.
Logging. Grain size, sorting and sedimentary structures recorded at every 0.5 m through all three holes, giving 424 logged intervals across 212 m of core, all logged by one person to keep the descriptions consistent.
Porosity. Helium porosimetry on 2.5 cm plugs cut in the core shed, three plugs per logged unit per hole, 36 plugs in total, with the plug positions photographed before the core left the library.
Correlation. Four informal units defined on grain size and on the sharp base of unit B, then checked hole by hole against the gamma trace rerun by the core library on its original tools.
Quality. Core recovery was 99% in C1, 94% in C2 and 97% in C3. The only gap longer than half a metre falls in unit D of hole C2, below the interval of interest.
Figure 2. Core photograph panel. The unit B contact photographs are held at the state core library and are not reproduced on this board.
%
C1
C2
C3
06121824
Figure 1. Mean porosity of unit B in each hole, C1, C2 and C3. Twelve plugs per hole.
Source: helium porosimetry, Warrigal Sandstone cores.
Units and thickness
Unit thickness by hole, top to bottom. Unit A, a muddy fine sandstone: 21 m in C1, 26 m in C2, 22 m in C3. Unit B, clean medium sandstone: 14 m, 19 m and 17 m. Unit C, interbedded sand and silt: 19 m, 18 m and 20 m. Unit D, pebbly coarse sandstone: 14 m, 11 m and 11 m. The totals are 68, 74 and 70 m. Unit B thickens to the north east and is the only unit whose base is sharp in all three holes; the other three boundaries are gradational over one to three metres and were placed at the midpoint of the transition. Core recovery was 99% in C1, 94% in C2 and 97% in C3, and the only gap longer than half a metre falls in unit D of C2, below the interval of interest. The gamma trace agrees with the hand log on the base of unit B in all three holes to within 0.5 m, and disagrees with it on the top of unit A in C2 by 2.5 m, which is the one boundary in this section a reader should treat as uncertain.
Porosity and what it means
Mean porosity in unit B is 18.4% in C1, 21.2% in C2 and 23.6% in C3, so the range across the field is 18% to 24% and every hole sits inside it. No other unit reaches 15% anywhere. The trend runs in the same direction as the thickening, which is what a cleaner, better sorted sand to the north east would produce, and the grain size log agrees: mean sorting improves from moderate in C1 to well sorted in C3. Two cautions. Twelve plugs per hole is a thin basis for a mean, and the spread within unit B in a single hole is 4 to 6 porosity points, wider than the difference between C1 and C2. And three holes fix a trend direction but not its shape, so a fourth hole to the north east is the obvious next step rather than a model. A fourth hole would also test the one thing the three cannot: whether the sharp base of unit B is a single surface or two surfaces that happen to sit at the same level in these three positions.
Unit B present in all three holes, 14 to 19 m thick
Porosity 18% to 24% in unit B, no other unit reaches 15%
424 intervals logged at 0.5 m across 212 m of core
Thickness and porosity both rise to the north east
REFERENCES
1.Osei, M. and Radcliffe, J. (2025) Log spacing and the detection of thin correlative units. Journal of Sedimentary Practice, 48(2), 166 to 184.
2.Delgado, C. (2024) Plug count and the uncertainty of a unit mean porosity. Petrophysics Letters, 31(4), 290 to 305.
3.Wiremu, H. (2026) Warrigal Sandstone: correlation from three cored holes. Brackenford Basin Reports 2026-05.

Block by block

What each block on the board is for, in the order a reader walks it.

Sidebar: title, four authors and a QR code
The coloured rail down the left carries the full title over four lines, the four authors with generated superscripts across two affiliations, the abstract, the core access note and a QR code at the foot.
Abstract
Three cored holes 1.8 to 3.1 kilometres apart through the full thickness of the sandstone: 68, 74 and 70 metres, 212 in total, logged at 0.5 metres for 424 intervals. Unit B carries 18% to 24% porosity in every hole and is the only unit that does.
Why three holes rather than one
A single cored hole gives a porosity log and cannot say whether the good interval is a sheet or a lens. Three non collinear holes across 3.1 kilometres is the smallest set that distinguishes them, and the finer log spacing costs two days per hole.
Methods as a labelled protocol
Five entries: the three holes and their spacing, logging of grain size, sorting and structures at 0.5 metres, helium porosimetry on 36 plugs, units defined on grain size and the sharp base of unit B then checked against the gamma log, and core recovery of 94% to 99%.
Units and thickness
Every unit thickness for every hole, top to bottom, with the totals of 68, 74 and 70 metres. Unit B thickens to the north east and is the only unit with a sharp base in all three holes; the other boundaries are gradational and were placed at the midpoint.
Porosity figure and what it means
A bar chart gives mean unit B porosity for the three holes at 18.4%, 21.2% and 23.6%, keyed C1 to C3 in the caption. The discussion reads the trend with the sorting log and then argues against over reading it from twelve plugs a hole.
Core photograph panel and references
The board carries a photograph panel that the generator cannot fill, and its caption says so: the unit B contact photographs are held at the state core library. Four checked points and three numbered references close the right hand column.

What makes this board work

The unit thicknesses are given hole by hole

Four units across three holes with every thickness listed and the totals of 68, 74 and 70 metres stated. A reader can add the column and confirm it, which is the point of showing a correlation rather than asserting one.

Log spacing is defended, not assumed

The introduction says what a one metre log would have missed: the sharp base of unit B, which is the only surface that correlates cleanly between holes. That is the methodological argument, and it sits where a reader meets it early.

The porosity claim names its plug count

Twelve plugs per hole, a within unit spread of four to six porosity points, and an explicit caution that the spread inside one hole is wider than the difference between two of them. The board argues against its own headline where the data requires it.

Questions people ask

What goes on a geology research poster?

The holes or sections, what was logged and at what spacing, how units were defined and correlated, the measurements with their sample counts, and the trend or model. Core recovery and any gaps belong on the board because they bound every other claim on it.

Do I need a core photograph on a poster?

It helps when a contact or texture carries the argument, but plan for it. On this layout the photograph panel is an image figure that cannot be filled by the generator, so the board states plainly in the caption that the photographs sit with the core library instead.

How do I present three logs without three columns of graphics?

List the unit thicknesses as text and spend the figure on the measurement that varies. This board gives all twelve thickness figures in one results block and uses its single chart for mean porosity in unit B, keyed to the three holes in the caption.

What type size does a geology poster need?

Body text on this board is near 24 pixels on the 1656 by 2340 canvas, about 12 millimetres printed at A0, which reads at a metre. Text on the coloured sidebar has to work against a dark fill, so keep it short and let the type resolve larger.

Can I print this at 300 DPI for a conference?

The export is twice the working canvas, so A0 portrait leaves at 3312 by 4680 pixels, roughly 100 DPI at full size. That is normal for a board read from a metre. There is no bleed, crop mark or CMYK conversion in the export.

How do I adapt this to my own cores?

Retype the sidebar title, abstract and core access note, change the five method entries, and edit the unit thickness text directly. The porosity figure holds its own categories and values, so adding a fourth hole is a data change rather than a layout one.

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