British Columbia Classification System

Like the GSC Classification system, this is also a rule based system, developed by Drs. Allen and Schuurman from SFU and Mike Wei, a senior Groundwater Hydrologist for BC. The BC classification system has a seventeen-category subsurface for well-log data and is unique to British Columbia. A brief outline of steps taken to derive well-log units for this classification system is as below:

A.) Main descriptors or words that are key indicators are extracted based on geological categories. Sandy and clayey for example are treated as sand and clay respectively. This step treats single original descriptor as the set defined category of the classification. That is if a field has one material word then that layer belongs to the category of that material.

B.) Multiple descriptors are reated equally for each layer and if they all belong to one group then the layer is regarded to that category. For instance, ‘gravel & pebble' should be in the ‘gravel' category. This aims to eliminate spaces and other connecting words.

C.) This also reduces multiple descriptors to single descriptors in cases where multiple labels are connected with the connector “with”: For such instances the first descriptor takes precedence over the following descriptors e.g. ‘sandstone with shale' goes into the ‘sandstone' category.

D.) This procedure is a further reduction in multiple descriptors with complex connectors: If a layer has three or more descriptor and the first two terms linked by ‘with', then the layer is classified to the first descriptor category neglecting the latter terms. For example, ‘silt with clay and gravel' should be regarded the ‘silt' as the only indicator term.

E.) For multiple descriptors linked with ‘and' or ‘&' only the first two descriptors are considered significant. E.g. the multiple descriptor ‘sand and gravel and silt', only ‘sand and gravel' will be considered.

F.) For multiple descriptors with no linking words or connectors, only the first two terms are considered significant. Hence, the multiple descriptor ‘sand gravel silt' should be considered only for ‘sand and gravel' categories.

G.) Multiple descriptors with no linking words but symbols such as “–“, “,”, etc, only the first two terms are considered significant with equal importance.

H.) Adjective words for certain nouns such as clayey, sandy, silty are not considered indicator terms. For example, the category or indicator term for ‘sandy clay' is ‘clay'.