The Tremaine Advantage

Services

TREMAINE's core staff of archaeologists are regional Registered Professionals® (RPA) and licensed geologists & geophysicists, with more than 1000 successful projects behind us. We are supported by a large, varied &  talented pool of field & laboratory technicians who are recruited from local colleges & universities. We employ specialists in every field, including human osteology, lithics analysis, soil analysis, and field survey & excavation techniques. We are thoroughly versed in CEQA & other state environmental laws & practices, Section 106, NAGPRA, NHPA compliance, and the cultural sections of FERC Relicensing. We possess the complementary strengths of managerial excellence, expert regulatory knowledge, academic scholarship, and the technical proficiency you need. We are often asked by state & federal agencies to direct or review their environmental projects, research and compliance.


Underground Survey Technology

Our  Underground Survey Technology™ systems can set the sampling density, power or frequency settings on the fly to produce an optimum response of local soil conditions, and the project or target's desired resolution & depth. The UST™ sampling density is variable, and can exceed 300 data points per meter/sec, with each datapoint tagged with a unique GPS coordinate for centimeter-level horizontal accuracy, and 10 to 50 cm vertical. Power settings range from .01 to 40 amps (500 VDC). Frequency can be set from 1.25 kHz to 20 kHz depending upon the required depth & resolution. Depending upon the instrument's modality settings typical depths can be 6, 25 meters, or greater than 100 meters. High resolution is used to produce hyper-accurate maps of near-surface objects, or features with lower resolutions to map soils & landforms, the boundaries of buried archaeological sites & features, detect & characterize disturbances such as beaver dens & fissures (voids), substance plumes including water infiltration, and pinpoint features or locations to bore or excavate for further sampling & testing. 


Geophysics & Archaeology

The Underground Survey™ offers capabilities that are unique to environmental & geoengineering compliance. Given local terrain & soil conditions we can detect and map surface topography and  the buried landforms or strata above the Holocene basement. Except for samples of ground truthing, archaeological sites or features often without the need for destructive excavation and testing. This saves time and money by informing your project of what lies below the surface before testing & construction. This caliber of subsurface intelligence can dramatically reduce the number of construction work stoppages & delays due to buried sites or features. Our technology and methods can also reduce the number of archaeological monitors necessary during construction.


What this Means to You 

Knowing  what lies below the ground is at least as important as what's on the surface. Our methods dramatically improve the usefulness, value & reliability of archaeological field surveys. When combined with geophysics' s data, archaeological field surveys you get the complete picture. You get to know where cultural resources are, where to avoid them, and you get that information when it will do your project the most good.

Finding buried landforms helps with the placement of bores,  

When you know what is on and below the ground you will have the unprecedented opportunity to reduce or eliminate work stoppages caused by the inevitable "new discovery" of buried archaeological sites or features when hidden by grass, fill, or natural deposits. With our state-of-the-art integration of GPS technology and geophysical instrument array we can produce hyper accurate maps of:

  • Surface geomorphology & buried soil deposits
  • Water loss due to faulty pipe or canal seepage
  • Buried infrastructure including pipes, cables, and voids*
  • Toxic or other substance plumes
  • Buried building or structural foundations, mine shafts
  • Disturbed soils, including filled-in holes & trenches


© John Lopez 2012