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Title: Derivation of site-specific relationships between hydraulic parameters and p-wave velocities based on hydraulic and seismic tomography

Journal Article · · Water Resources Research
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2011WR010868· OSTI ID:1076806

In this study, hydraulic and seismic tomographic measurements were used to derive a site-specific relationship between the geophysical parameter p-wave velocity and the hydraulic parameters, diffusivity and specific storage. Our field study includes diffusivity tomograms derived from hydraulic travel time tomography, specific storage tomograms, derived from hydraulic attenuation tomography, and p-wave velocity tomograms, derived from seismic tomography. The tomographic inversion was performed in all three cases with the SIRT (Simultaneous Iterative Reconstruction Technique) algorithm, using a ray tracing technique with curved trajectories. The experimental set-up was designed such that the p-wave velocity tomogram overlaps the hydraulic tomograms by half. The experiments were performed at a wellcharacterized sand and gravel aquifer, located in the Leine River valley near Göttingen, Germany. Access to the shallow subsurface was provided by direct-push technology. The high spatial resolution of hydraulic and seismic tomography was exploited to derive representative site-specific relationships between the hydraulic and geophysical parameters, based on the area where geophysical and hydraulic tests were performed. The transformation of the p-wave velocities into hydraulic properties was undertaken using a k-means cluster analysis. Results demonstrate that the combination of hydraulic and geophysical tomographic data is a promising approach to improve hydrogeophysical site characterization.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
Earth Sciences Division
DOE Contract Number:
DE-AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1076806
Report Number(s):
LBNL-5357E
Journal Information:
Water Resources Research, Vol. 48, Issue 3; Related Information: Journal Publication Date: 2012; ISSN 0043-1397
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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