Teaching and Training

An estimated 30 engineers from the Mon state Department of Rural Development and its respective township branches, in addition to 20 students and professors at Mawlamyine University’s Geology Department will be trained over the course of an intense 2-week short course in early-mid 2020. The training will be facilitated by Michael Maxwell, Doug Oldenburg, and Ren Fan, researchers from the University of British Columbia Geophysical Inversion Facility (UBC-GIF). Dr. Oldenburg in particular has extensive training in applied geophysics, having been invited to and conducted the 2017 Society of Exploration Geophysicists’ (SEG) DISC course (Distinguished Instructor Short Course), “Geophysical Electromagnetics: Fundamentals and Applications”.

The goal of the first week of training will be for participants to acquire, invert, and interpret a 1-dimensional DC-Resistivity sounding. Material regarding DC fundamentals, inversion fundamentals, data collection, and field demonstrations will be provided. The goal of the second week will be to extend the analysis to 2 dimensions. This includes forward modeling for 2-dimensional structures, field survey demonstrations and data collection, and inversion theory and practice using free and open-source UBC-GIF SimPEG software (Simulation and Parameter Estimation in geophysics), and interpretation to find groundwater sources and optimal locations at which to drill wells.

To support the training, a comprehensive suite of open source educational resources will be developed, including: interactive Python-based Jupyter notebook apps, a DC-Resistivity user guide and training handbook translated into Burmese, presentation slides, notes and handouts, computer lab instructions, assignments, and documentation for UBC-GIF SimPEG (Simulation and Parameter Estimation in Geophysics) software. You can see an example below: