PFLOTRAN-E4D: A parallel open source PFLOTRAN module for simulating time-lapse electrical resistivity data

Journal Article · Thu Sep 22 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Computers and Geosciences

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2016.09.006· OSTI ID:1371473

Johnson, Timothy C. ^[1]; Hammond, Glenn E. ^[2]; Chen, Xingyuan ^[1]

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1. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
2. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Time-lapse electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) is finding increased application for remotely monitoring processes occurring in the near subsurface in three-dimensions (i.e. 4D monitoring). However, there are few codes capable of simulating the evolution of subsurface resistivity and corresponding tomographic measurements arising from a particular process, particularly in parallel and with an open source license. Herein we describe and demonstrate an electrical resistivity tomography module for the PFLOTRAN subsurface flow and reactive transport simulation code, named PFLOTRAN-E4D. The PFLOTRAN-E4D module operates in parallel using a dedicated set of compute cores in a master-slave configuration. At each time step, the master processes receives subsurface states from PFLOTRAN, converts those states to bulk electrical conductivity, and instructs the slave processes to simulate a tomographic data set. The resulting multi-physics simulation capability enables accurate feasibility studies for ERT imaging, the identification of the ERT signatures that are unique to a given process, and facilitates the joint inversion of ERT data with hydrogeological data for subsurface characterization. PFLOTRAN-E4D is demonstrated herein using a field study of stage-driven groundwater/river water interaction ERT monitoring along the Columbia River, Washington, USA. Results demonstrate the complex nature of subsurface electrical conductivity changes, in both the saturated and unsaturated zones, arising from river stage fluctuations and associated river water intrusion into the aquifer. Furthermore, the results also demonstrate the sensitivity of surface based ERT measurements to those changes over time.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE; USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC04-94AL85000
• OSTI ID: 1371473
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1347847; OSTI ID: 1397375
• Report Number(s): SAND--2016-5314J; PII: S0098300416304289
• Journal Information: Computers and Geosciences, Journal Name: Computers and Geosciences Journal Issue: C Vol. 99; ISSN 0098-3004
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
electrical resistivity tomography
groundwater
hydrogeophysics
multi-physics
open-source
parallel
simulation
time-lapse geophysics