I titled today’s photo ‘Checkpoint Wadi’ because when we moved into this concession in western Libya in 1990, this was one of the few routes for travelers to traverse the escarpment.
Category Archives: Deserts I passed these desert enclosures on the way back to camp one evening. Typically you wanted to be back in camp before sundown as sundown to darkness only took about 30 minutes. While the desert is deceiving during the day, it’s doubly or more so at night.  So here’s a wider shot of the end of the line. Well, not the end actually, more of a hiatus. The line continued up here on the top of the escarpment but all the trucks had to drive around to the nearest wadi or road we cut that provided access.  In today’s shot the four seismic vibrators are working their way, single file, along a bulldozed track and shaking the foothills of the escarpment.  Although this looks at first glance to be an aerial shot, I’m actually standing on the on terra firma for this shot of our vibs approaching the escarpment.  Things are looking down or, perhaps more appropriately, I’m looking down on things. Western Libya, 1990, and four Birdwagen Mark III’s with Failing Y1100 vibrators approach the bottom of the escarpment. 
[...] a tighter framing of yesterday’s shot. The line of Sercel SN348 boxes is more easily seen in this shot, if you know what you’re [...]
[...] the scar to the south of the jebel, where it emerges from the rough terrain you can make out the bend in the line and also the tracks of the four vibrators. Wow! I’ve spent hours looking for that an now I [...]  When you stand relatively close to a seismic vibrator you can literally feel the earth shaking. I don’t know if you could feel this jebel shaking or not but certainly had we set geophones on it we’d have detected it shaking.
[...] in the background, beyond the dog box, are the boulders seen in front of the vibs in the ‘Jebel Shaking‘ image I posted [...]  Actually I’ve no idea whether or not this road construction next 5 miles tag is accurate or not. It’s often hard to tell distance in the desert, particularly on these hazy days.  Today’s photo is of a Cat D8 (or D9, I’m not an aficionado) ripping the earth a new one – road that is.
[...] and miles of road construction with not a soul to be seen. Here there’s miles of work, a bulldozer in play, the ‘dozer operator’s spotter yet only a single [...]
[...] vibs are traversing a path cut by our bulldozer – you can see the line of the cut traversing the image. Had the survey line been out where [...]  I’ve titled the last in my camel series, ‘I’ve been spotted’. The camel has wandered further away from me to the north-east but in this image it’s as though it’s looking directly at me |
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by Richard Davis