Interesting Oilfield Jobs, Mudlogging and The Mudlogger

There are many interesting and well paying jobs in the oil and gas industry. One of these is the job of mudlogger. Mudlogging is a branch of geology that is concerned with determining if an oil well that is being drilled has penetrated zones containing oil and gas.
This is done by collecting a sample of drilling mud and removing the rock fragments that the bit has drilled by washing them out with water or diesel.
Once the sample of rock is clean the mudlogger takes it into his lab and looks at it under magnification and classifies what kind of rock it is and if there is any hydrocarbons contained in it. A log of the well is produced that indicates what kind of rock stratas have been encountered and how much natural gas came from those depths.
The mudlogger has a variety of instruments in his portable lab. These include a hot wire meter that registers the total amount of gas coming up in the drilling mud and a gas chromatograph that shows how rich the natural gas is in terms of components like propane and methane.
Mudlogging is as much an art as a science and experienced mudloggers have been helpful in preventing many oilfield blowouts by recognizing signs that indicate that there may be a light spot in the drilling mud. The mudloggers instruments that measure gas can measure increases that happen at periods when the mud pumps are off and gas flows into the well. A good mudlogger can recognize which are normal and which are caused by an under balanced situation and alert the driller and company man of a possible "kick" or prelude to a blowout that is about to occur.
Good mudloggers can also spot small, possibly productive zones that even a wireline well log may miss.
Mudlogging is a profession that requires much time spent away from home. Salaries can be as much as $50,000 per month for land jobs and up to $100,000 for degreed geologists working on offshore rigs and overseas.
More on mudlogging jobs can be found at http://www.energyindustryphotos.com