Facilities and Equipment
The Geological Sciences Department has access to the following facilities, software, instrumentation, and equipment.
Facilities
The following facilities are maintained by or closely affiliated with the Department.
This state-of-the art facility is funded with an endowment from Signal Hill Petroleum. It currently has an inner clean room with 2 conventional fume hoods and 1 laminar flow-hood, a DIONEX IC 5000 equipped with a DIONEX AS-DV autosampler for cation/anion analysis, a Perkin-Elmer LS 45 Fluorescence spectrometer, a Cary 50 UV/Vis Spectrophotometer, and the Picarro Carbon Isotope Analysis System.
The Center is a repository of subsurface data and logs for over 14,000 wells in southern California as well as offshore seismic data.
We are a geological data center open to all members of the scientific community, including consulting geologists, those working for companies or government agencies, students, and faculty. We specialize in well data for the Los Angeles Basin and surrounding parts of Southern California as far north as the southern Ventura County line.
Our holdings can be inspected by anyone by appointment. We can arrange for digital and/or paper copies to be made for you at cost. If you provide us with well names and township/range/section locations we can pull the appropriate files before you arrive.
LABSDC is affiliated with the Department of Geological Sciences at California State University, Long Beach. As such LABSDC is part of a non-profit organization and all donations that are made are used for maintenance and improvement of the data files. Currently most of the data files are paper records. Our efforts focus on preparing an electronic database of our files, and digitizing the files themselves. Many of our clients have files they are interested in scanned, and a copy of those scans is kept by LABSDC. We welcome any donations of funds to further these efforts, as well as donations of data files.
LABSDC has a number of collections of data, primarily oil and gas well logs, drilling reports, seismic data, maps, and cross sections. Among our holdings are:
- Well files donated by Chevron covering Southern California south of a line at the latitude of Ventura; about 14,000 wells are represented, with paper logs, drilling reports, and some paleontologic and other reports.
- Microfiche well files for southern California representing about 30,000 wells drilled before 1980, donated by Dr. Peter Fischer of California State University, Northridge.
- Well files and directional well maps of several fields in the Los Angeles Basin prepared and donated by Dr. Robert Yeats of Oregon State University.
- Well files and other information donated by Russ Simonson.
- Offshore maps and paper seismic and echo sounder data for southern California donated by Dr. Peter Fischer of California State University, Northridge.
The Institute for Integrated Research in Materials, Environment, and Society (IIRMES) is a joint research facility operated by the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and the College of Liberal Arts. It maintains extensive analytical equipment including:
- Agilent 7500ce ICP-MS with ASX-500 autosampler
- GCB Optimas ICP-MS with laser ablation system
- FEI Quanta 200 ESEM
- Agilent Technologies Gas Chromatographs (GC 7683B and 7890A series)
Southern California Marine Institute (SCMI) a consortium of several California State University Campuses, University of Southern California, and Occidental College. It provides access to three ocean-going research vessels, support staff, and dockside facilities.
Software
The Department employs the following software.
IHS Kingdom Suite is an industry-standard 3D seismic and well log visualization and interpretation system. IHS Kingdom has generously provided the Department with a license for this software, which is a powerful tool for our petroleum geology training program and our petroleum and tectonics research program.
The following is a list of publications in which Kingdom Suite was used to interpret data. (CSULB faculty in bold; student authors indicated by *)
Papers, Theses and Field Guides
- Robert Francis, Mark Legg, Chris Castillo*, and Luke Shafer*, San Pedro Basin fault - San Diego Trough fault system: a recently integrated fault complex (150-600 ka), offshore southern California Inner Borderland in preparation
- Francis, R.D. and Legg, M.R., 2007, Late Quaternary uplift of the Palos Verdes tectonic block: evidence from high resolution seismic imaging of the Palos Verdes fault on the San Pedro shelf, in Brown, A. R., Shlemon, R. J., and Cooper, J. D., eds., Geology and Paleontology of the Palos Verdes Hills, California: A 60th Anniversary Revisit to Commemorate the 1946 Publication of U. S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 207: Pacific Section SEPM, book 103, p. 189-222.
- Schwiebert, J.F.* and Francis, R.D., 2007, Tectonic origin of the Cabrillo fault, Palos Verdes Peninsula and adjacent San Pedro Shelf, in Brown, A. R., Shlemon, R. J., and Cooper, J. D., eds., Geology and Paleontology of the Palos Verdes Hills, California: A 60th Anniversary Revisit to Commemorate 1946 Publication of U. S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 207: Pacific Section SEPM book 103. p. 223-232.
- Nicholson, C., Kennett, J., Sorlien, C., Hopkins, S., Behl, R., Normark, W., Sliter, R., Hill, T., Pak, D., Schimmelmann, A., and K.Cannariato, 2006. Extending the High-Resolution Global Climate Record in Santa Barbara Basin, EOS, v. 87, no. 21 (23 May 2006), p. 205, 208.
- Hill, T.M., Kennett, J.P., Valentine, D.L., Yang, Z., Reddy, C., Nelson, B., Behl, R.J., Robert, C., and L. Beaufort, 2006. Evidence for climatically driven Quaternary hydrocarbon emissions on the California margin, Proceedings, National Academy of Sciences vol. 103, no. 37, p. 13570-13574.
- Schwiebert, J.F.*, 2004, Origin of the Cabrillo fault, Palos Verdes Peninsula, Southern California, M.S. Thesis, 150pp., California State University Long Beach
- Francis, RD; Sigurdson, DR; Legg, MR; Grannell, RB; and Ambos, EL "Student participation in an offshore seismic-reflection study of the Palos Verdes fault, California Continental Borderland." Journal of Geoscience Education, v.47 pp.23-30 (1999).
- Francis, RD, Bohannon, RG, and Legg, M, Geology and Marine Geophysics of Catalina Island and the California Borderland, in Behl, RJ ed., Guidebook to Field Trip no. 7, 94th Annual Meeting, Cordilleran Section of the Geological Society of America, Long Beach, California State University, Department of Geological Sciences, p.7.1-7.16. (1998).
Abstracts
- Behl, R.J., Afshar, S.*, Kennett, J.P., Nicholson, C., Sorlien, C.C., Marshall, C.J.*, Hill, T.M., White, S.M.*, Dean, W.E., and Barron, J.A., 2011. Extending the Record of Abrupt and Millennial-Scale Climate and Ocean Change through the Mid-Pleistocene Transition in Santa Barbara basin, California, PACLIM, Monterey, California, March 2011.
- Behl, R.J., Marshall, C.J.*, Escobedo, D.*, 2011. Consistent sedimentation rate estimates over 5 orders of magnitude, from annual to million-year time-scales, Santa Barbara basin, California. PAGES Varve Working Group meeting, Corpus Christi, Texas.
- Robert D. Francis and Mark R. Legg, Quaternary uplift and subsidence of Catalina Ridge and San Pedro Basin, Inner California Continental Borderland, offshore southern California; results of high-resolution seismic profiling, American Geophysical Society Annual Meeting, Dec. 13-17, 2010, San Francisco (2010)
- Behl, R.J.; Kennett, J.P.; Afshar, S*.; Escobedo, D.E.*; Nicholson, C.; Sorlien, C.C.; 2010. Extending an intermittently varved record of abrupt and millennial-scale climate and ocean change through the Pleistocene in Santa Barbara Basin, California, USA, 1st PAGES Varve Working Group meeting, Lahemaa, Estonia.
- Behl, R.J., Kennett, J., Afshar, S.*, Escobedo, D.*, Hill, T.M., Nicholson, C., and Sorlien, C.C., 2010, Abrupt and Millennial-Scale Climate and Ocean Change since the Mid-Pleistocene Transition in Santa Barbara Basin, California, Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, Vol. 42, No. 4, p. 54.
- Peterson, C.D*., Behl, R.J., Nicholson, C., Lisiecki, L., and Sorlien, C.C., 2010, Orbital- to Sub-Orbital-Scale Cyclicity in Seismic Reflections and Sediment Character in Early to Middle Pleistocene Mudstone, Santa Barbara, CA, Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, Vol. 42, No. 4, p. 77.
- Marshall, C.J.*, Sorlien, C.C., Nicholson, C., Behl, R.J., Kennett, J., 2010, Sedimentation in an Active Fold and Thrust Belt, Santa Barbara Basin, CA: Spatial and Temporal Evolution of Sedimentation from 1.0 Ma to Present, Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, Vol. 42, No. 4, p. 8.
- Afshar, S.*; Behl, R.J.; Kennett, J.P.; Dean, W.E.; 2010. High-Resolution Windows into Abrupt and Millennial-Scale Changes in Climate and Ocean since the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, Santa Barbara Basin, CA, International Conference on Paleoceanography X, San Diego, Thu015.
- White, S.M.*; Hill, T.M.; Kennett, J.; Behl, R.J., (2010). High-Resolution Climate "Windows" from Santa Barbara Basin: Investigations of Quaternary Rapid Climate Change, Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, Vol. 42, No. 5, p. 541.
- Robert D. Francis, Mark Legg, Luke R. Shafer*, and Chris M. Castillo*, Miocene to Recent tectonic evolution of San Pedro Basin and Santa Catalina Island; evidence from high-resolution seismic reflection images (in Joint meeting of the 106th annual meeting of the Cordilleran Section, Geological Society of America and 85th annual meeting of the Pacific Section, American Association Petroleum Geologists, Grove,) Abstracts with Programs - Geological Society of America (May 2010), 42(4):56 (2010)
- Marsaglia, K.M., Behl, R.J., and Escobedo, D.E.*, 2009. Sandy Facies at ODP Site 893 in the Santa Barbara Basin and Implications of Proposed Drilling by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, Pacific Section, American Association of Petroleum Geologists Annual Meeting, Ventura, CA.
- Nicholson, C., Kennett, J.P., Behl, R.J., and Sorlien, C.C., 2009. Recent Studies Help Extend the Ultra-High-Resolution Global Climate Record from Santa Barbara Basin Back to Pliocene Time, Pacific Section, American Association of Petroleum Geologists Annual Meeting, Ventura, CA.
- Afshar, S.*, Behl, R.J., and Kennett, J.P., 2009. Abrupt Climate Change and Millenial-Scale Oscillations in Marine Sedimentary Geochemistry at 300 and 700 ka, Santa Barbara Basin, California, Pacific Section, American Association of Petroleum Geologists Annual Meeting, Ventura, CA.
- Marshall, C.J.*, Sorlien, C.C., Nicholson, C., Behl, R.J., and Kennett, J.P., 2009. Spatial and Temporal Evolution of Sedimentation in Santa Barbara Basin, California, from 1.0 Ma to Present, Pacific Section, American Association of Petroleum Geologists Annual Meeting, Ventura, CA.
- Peterson, C.D*., Behl, R.J., Nicholson, C., Lisiecki, L.E., and Sorlien, C.C., 2009. Orbital-Scale Cyclicity in Seismic Reflections and Sediment Character as a Climate Proxy in the Plio-Pleistocene Middle Pico Formation, Santa Barbara, California, Pacific Section, American Association of Petroleum Geologists Annual Meeting, Ventura, CA.
- Peterson, C.D.*; Behl, R.J.; Nicholson, C.; Lisiecki, L.E.; Sorlien, C.C.; 2009. Orbital- to Sub-Orbital-Scale Cyclicity in Seismic Reflections and Sediment Character in Early to Middle Pleistocene Mudstone, Santa Barbara Basin, California, Eos Trans. AGU, 90(52), Jt. Assem.. Suppl., Abstract PP31B-1318.
- Afshar, S.*; Behl, R.J.; Kennett, J.P.; Dean, W.E.; 2009. Millennial-Scale Oscillations in Climate and Water Character Recorded in Marine Sediment Geochemistry of Santa Barbara Basin, California at ~300ka and ~ 700ka. Eos Trans. AGU, 90(52), Jt. Assem. Suppl., Abstract PP31B-1321
- Marshall, C.J.*; Sorlien, C.C.; Nicholson, C.; Behl, R.J.; Kennett, J.P.; 2009. Sedimentation in an Active Fold and Thrust Belt, Santa Barbara Basin, CA: Spatial and Temporal Evolution from 1.0 Ma to Present. Eos Trans. AGU, 90(52), Jt. Assem. Suppl., Abstract T21D-1848.
- Mark R. Legg, Mike Barth, and Robert D. Francis, High-resolution seismic imaging of active strike-slip faults in coastal and offshore southern California. Society of Exploration Geophysicists Annual Meeting, Nov. 2008
- Nicholson, C., Kennett, J.P., Behl, R.J., Sorlien, C.C., and Marshall, C..J*., 2008. Using Active Tectonics to Extend the Ultra-High-Resolution Global Climate Record from Santa Barbara Basin Back to ~1.2 Ma. . Eos Trans. AGU, 89(53), Jt. Assem. Suppl., Abstract PP11B-1390.
- Robert D. Francis and Mark R. Legg, Uplift of the Palos Verdes Tectonic Block from 600 ka, As Evidenced by Mapping of the Palos Verdes Fault, Pre- and Syn-Uplift Deposition, and Related Structures: Results of High-Resolution Offshore Seismic Imaging. Pacific Section American Association of Petroleum Geologists meeting, April, 2008.
- John F. Schwiebert* and Robert D. Francis (presenter), Onshore-offshore Cabrillo Fault, Palos Verdes, California: a Tectonic Fault Associated with the Palos Verdes Fault. Pacific Section American Association of Petroleum Geologists meeting, April, 2008.
- Behl, R.J., Escobedo, D.K.*, Kennett, J.P., Nicholson, C., and Sorlien, C.C., 2007. Decadal to Million-Year Sedimentation Rates and the Ultra-High-Resolution Marine Record From Santa Barbara Basin. Eos Trans. AGU, 88(52), Jt. Assem. Suppl., Abstract PP41C-0677.
- Escobedo, D.K.*, and Behl, R.J., 2006. A Potential 700,000 Year History of Cataclysmic Storm and Flood Events, Santa Barbara Basin, Coastal California: Preliminary Results, Geological Society of America Annual Meeting, Paper No. 202-21.
- Kennett, J.P., Behl, R.J., Hill, T., Pak, D., Schimmelmann, A., Nicholson, C., Sorlien, C.C., and Hopkins, S.E., 2005. Extending the High-Resolution Global Climate Record in Santa Barbara Basin: Preliminary Results and Implications, EOS Trans. AGU, 86(52), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract PP34B-02.
- Behl R.J., Kennett, Hill, T., Pak, D., Schimmelmann, A., Cannariato, K.G., Nicholson, C., Sorlien, C.C., and Hopkins, S.E.*, 2005, Extending the High-Resolution Global Climate Record in Santa Barbara Basin: Developing a More Continuous Composite Section from Overlapping Cores, EOS Trans. AGU, 86(52), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract PP51D-0636.
- R. D. Francis, M. R. Legg, and D. Hallinger, 2003, Segmentation in the Palos Verdes fault, San Pedro Bay and detachment attenuation within the Inner Continental borderland, offshore Southern California, abs. Pacific Section American Association of Petroleum Geologists meeting, May, 2003. Recipient of the H. Victor Church Award for best poster at the 2003 Pacific Section AAPG meeting; award presented at the 2004 meeting, May 11, 2004.
- R. D. Francis, M. R. Legg , K. Kyster*, and D. E. Hallinger, 2002, Transtensional and transpressional zonation along the Palos Verdes fault Zone, San Pedro Bay. abs. Southern California Earthquake Center Annual Meeting, October 2002.
- 3-D subsurface visualization and mapping software for seismic and well logs (IHS Kingdom Suite; Schlumberger Petrel)
- GIS software (MapInfo and ArcGIS)
- Analytical software (Matlab, Mathcad, AQTESOLV, Topodrive, Particle Flow and Origin 8.0)
- Kingdom Suite geophysical processing software
- Groundwater Vistas Numerical Modeling software
- Lithotect
- Adobe Creative Cloud Suite
- Geochemist's Workbench
- BasinMod
Equipment
The Department maintains the following equipment.
- Trimble R8 Differential GPS system
- Trimble GEOXH
- Leitz total station laser surveying system
- AGI Supersting R8 Electrical Resistivity Imager
- LaCoste-Romberg high-precision gravimeter
- land-based seismic reflection/refraction system with weight-drop energy source and 24-channel land seismic data acquisition system
- marine multi-channel seismic reflection system that includes a digital 24-channel hydrophone streamer and uniboom and sparker energy sources
- Konica Minolta CM-2600d Handheld spectrophotometer
- Livingstone piston coring system with 35 m of drive rod
- PYLONEX HTH Gravity Corer
- YSI MDS water quality meter w/650 Sonde and 200 foot cable
- water sampling equipment including a Kemmerer trace element sampler
- inflatable raft system
- field vehicles: three 4WD 8-passenger SUVs, one 4WD 12-person van, one standard 12-person van and one flatbed truck
- bladder pump for sampling deep well water
- Grundfos Redi-flow2 pumps for low rate pumping and sampling in wells
- Two Oryx Fiber Optic Distributed Temperature Sensing systems
- Delta-XP Gas source mass spectrometer coupled with
- Gasbench II auto sampler
- TC/EA autosampler
- New Wave MIR-10 CO2 laser coupled to a fluorination line
- CosTech CHN elemental analyzer
- iXRF Systems "Iridium Ultra" combined X-ray fluorescence and electron-beam energy dispersive spectroscopy system, mounted on the FEI Quanta 200 environmental scanning electron microscope
- Saturn DigiSizer™ particle size analyzer with autosampler
- UIC® Carbon/Sulfur Coulometer
- Dionex ICS-5000 ion chromatograph equipped with dual AS-DV autosamplers for simultaneous cation and anion measurements
- Perkin Elmer LS 45 Fluorescence Spectrometer
- Varian Cary® UV-VIS spectrophotometer
- Bruker Optik Alpha-P FT-IR spectrometer
- PIMA portable infrared spectrometer
- Rigaku Miniflex x-ray diffractometer with X'Pert Highscore plus peak identification software
- petrographic thin section-making equipment and microdrill system
- fluid inclusion heating/freezing stage
- ModulyoD® freeze-drier
- Linux workstations and SIOSEIS seismic data processing software
- 13-station graduate computer lab
- 24-station general computer lab
- digitizer tablet
- 42" scanner
- 42" HP color inkjet plotter
