09131 Early CIS – From the Backpack to the Slurpy Cell

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Product Number: 51300-09131-SG

ISBN: 09131 2009 CP

Author: Andy Smart

Publication Date: 2009

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This paper is an account of one of the earliest applications of computerized close interval survey, then called by its developer Computerized Potential Logging (CPL). A large Alaska pipeline company did 100 miles of CPL in 1979. The paper includes a discussion of the technical aspects of CIS as well as some interesting anecdotes about those early days of CIS application. After several years of working with contractors, the author of the paper, and Senior Corrosion Engineer for this pipeline company from 1978 through 1985, assembled and programmed equipment to do CIS at a time when off-the-shelf equipment was not available. After that, the pipeline company no longer needed to rely on outside service providers to do their annual pipeline survey. This application of CIS on the Alaska pipeline grew from a simple need for something better, to the first conception and application of the time-based survey which enabled CIS data interpretation to be done in the face of significant telluric current interference. Regarding the paper’s title; the backpack refers to the fact that when the first CPL unit arrived in Alaska in 1979, it was hand-made and the size of a camper’s backpack, and the Slurpy Cell is the name that was given to the disposable reference electrodes that were made to facilitate the time-based telluric current survey.

Keywords: close interval survey, CIS, computerized potential logging, CPL, slurpy cell, disposable reference electrode, telluric current, early CIS