Inversion of resistivity in Magnetic Resonance Sounding

Magnetic Resonance Sounding (MRS, or Surface Nuclear Magnetic Resonance - SNMR) is used for groundwater exploration and aquifer characterization. Since this is an electromagnetic method, the excitation magnetic field depends on the resistivity of the subsurface. Therefore, the resistivity has to be taken into account in the inversion: either as a priori information or as an inversion parameter during the inversion process, as introduced in the presented paper. Studies with synthetic data show that water content and resistivity can be resolved for a low resistive aquifer even using only the amplitude of the MRS signal. However, the inversion result can be significantly improved using amplitude and phase of the MRS signal. The successful implementation of the inversion for field data shows that the resistivities derived from MRS are comparable to those from conventional geoelectric methods such as DC resistivity and transient electromagnetic. By having information about both the resistivity and the water content, MRS inversions give information about the quality of the water in the aquifer. This is of utmost interest in hydrogeological studies as this specific information cannot be determined solely by geoelectric measurements, due to the nonunique dependence of resistivity on water content and salinity.     

The application of the transient electromagnetic method in hydrogeophysical surveys

The transient electromagnetic (TEM) method has been used extensively for hydrogeophysical exploration in Denmark for the past decade. Innovative instrumentation combined with multi-dimensional modelling and interpretational insights based on experience gained through numerous case studies have proven to be a successful strategy. In the case study reported here, the combination revealed an unknown and unexpected buried valley complex. Drill hole data were in good agreement with estimates of both the bearings and depths of valleys defined by the TEM surveys. The Pulled Array Transient Electromagnetic (PATEM) system was built to provide high data density for increased lateral resolution. A High moment Transient Electromagnetic (HiTEM) system was developed for delineation of aquifers to depths up to 300 m. Because both of these systems provide high data density, data quality can be assessed as part of the interpretational strategy. When acquiring TEM measurements in areas as densely populated as the Danish countryside, precautions must be taken to minimize coupling between the TEM system and man-made conductors. Modelling the slope of the flanks of buried valleys has challenged the adequacy of the one-dimensional (1-D) assumption for inversion of TEM data. The study shows that for a valley structure in a low-resistive layer, the 1-D assumption is sufficient to track the presence of rather steep slopes. For a valley structure in a high-resistive layer, however, the insensitivity of the TEM method to resistors makes it difficult to determine a slope with a 1-D inversion, and only the overall structure is defined.     

Characterizing hyporheic transport processes — Interpretation of electrical geophysical data in coupled stream–hyporheic zone systems during solute tracer studies

Quantifying hyporheic solute dynamics has been limited by our ability to assess the magnitude and extent of stream interactions with multiple domains: mobile subsurface storage (MSS, e.g., freely flowing pore water) and immobile subsurface storage (ISS, e.g., poorly connected pore water). Stream-tracer experiments coupled with solute transport modeling are frequently used to characterize lumped MSS and ISS dynamics, but are limited by the ability to sample only “mobile” water and by window of detection issues. Here, we couple simulations of near-surface electrical resistivity (ER) methods with conservative solute transport to directly compare solute transport with ER interpretations, and to determine the ability of ER to predict spatial and temporal trends of solute distribution and transport in stream–hyporheic systems. Results show that temporal moments from both ER and solute transport data are well correlated for locations where advection is not the dominant solute transport process. Mean arrival time and variance are especially well-predicted by ER interpretation, providing the potential to estimate rate-limited mass transport (i.e. diffusive) parameters from these data in a distributed domain, substantially increasing our knowledge of the fate and transport of subsurface solutes.     

Hydro-gravimetry in West-Africa: First results from the Djougou (Benin) superconducting gravimeter

The increasing number of hydro-gravimetry studies proves the rising interest of the hydrology community toward this monitoring method. The accuracy of superconducting gravimeters (SG) potentially allows the retrieval of small water storage changes (WSC) down to a few millimeters of equivalent water thickness. However, the importance of corrections applied to SG data to achieve such a precision in gravity residuals should be recalled. The Djougou permanent gravity station presented in this paper and located in northern Benin, West-Africa, provides a good opportunity to review these considerations. This station is equipped since July 2010 with the superconducting gravimeter SG-060 aimed at deriving WSC at different time-scales, daily to inter-annual. In this area, WSC are (1) part of the control system for evapotranspiration (ET) process, a key variable of the West-African monsoon cycle and (2) the state variable for resource management, a critical issue in storage-poor hard rock basement contexts such as in northern Benin. The potential for deriving WSC from time-lapse gravity data partly depends on environmental features such as topography and the instrument shelter. Therefore, this issue is addressed first, with the background idea that such sensitivity analysis should be undertaken before setting up any new instrument. In Djougou, local topography is quite flat leading to a theoretical straightforward relationship between gravity changes and WSC, close to the standard Bouguer value. However, the shelter plays a significant masking role, which is the principal limitation to the retrieval of fast hydrological processes such as ET following a rain event. Several issues concerning classical gravity corrections are also addressed in the paper. These include gap-filling procedures during rain-events and drift estimates for short time series. Special attention is provided to atmospheric corrections, and different approaches are tested: a simple scalar admittance, a filtered scalar admittance, a frequency-dependent admittance and direct atmospheric loading calculations. It is shown that the physically based approach of direct loading calculations performs better in both residual minimization and ET retrieval. Moreover, non-local hydrological effects are investigated and account for about 20% of the gravity residuals. Finally, gravity residuals are briefly analyzed at two distinct time scales: rapid (up to a few days) and seasonal. At the rapid time-scale, it is shown that ET retrieval is hardly achievable given shelter size and state-of-the-art atmospheric corrections. Still, mean values retrieved from this study are in accordance with known values of potential ET and lateral flow. Direct comparison of gravity changes with hydrological data (neutron probe monitoring and water table levels) show some discrepancies, particularly for the hydrological year of 2011, for which all hydrological data show a deficit, but SG and FG5 data do not. This preliminary analysis both provides a basis and call for further hydro-gravity modeling, to comprehensively investigate the water-cycle at the Djougou station.     

Inversion of multiple intersecting high-resolution crosshole GPR profiles for hydrological characterization at the Boise Hydrogeophysical Research Site

The integration of geophysical data into the subsurface characterization problem has been shown in many cases to significantly improve hydrological knowledge by providing information at spatial scales and locations that is unattainable using conventional hydrological measurement techniques. In particular, crosshole ground-penetrating radar (GPR) tomography has shown much promise in hydrology because of its ability to provide highly detailed images of subsurface radar wave velocity, which is strongly linked to soil water content. Here, we develop and demonstrate a procedure for inverting together multiple crosshole GPR data sets in order to characterize the spatial distribution of radar wave velocity below the water table at the Boise Hydrogeophysical Research Site (BHRS) near Boise, Idaho, USA. Specifically, we jointly invert 31 intersecting crosshole GPR profiles to obtain a highly resolved and consistent radar velocity model along the various profile directions. The model is found to be strongly correlated with complementary neutron porosity-log data and is further corroborated by larger-scale structural information at the BHRS. This work is an important prerequisite to using crosshole GPR data together with existing hydrological measurements for improved groundwater flow and contaminant transport modeling.     

Assessing aquifer vulnerability to pollutants by electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) at a nitrate vulnerable zone in NE Spain

There is an increasing demand for groundwater vulnerability maps which illustrate the exposure of aquifers against pollution. These maps show areas of greatest potential for groundwater contamination on the basis of local subsurface conditions. Parameters affecting vulnerability are mainly permeability and thickness of each protective layer. For unconsolidated sediments, the permeability is strongly related to the clay content, which can be deduced from indirect resistivity methods, like electrical-imaging. Such geophysical methods can be of great help in groundwater vulnerability studies because they disturb neither the structure nor the dynamics of the soil. Sensibility analysis was performed of the electrical resistivity tomography method for accurately mapping soil media. Managers and public administrators may effectively use this method for assessing the potential risk of groundwater contamination. In the studied zone, electrical resistivity exhibits a wide range of variability that can be easily correlated to soil parameters, such as clay content and hydraulic conductivity. A numerical index of protection has been assessed from the geophysical information derived from 2D electrical resistivity tomography. This work represents a preliminary approach on the natural vulnerability evaluation of shallow aquifers at the Empordà basin (NE Spain) that is highly affected by diffuse pollution by nitrates.     

Long-term slow slip events are not necessarily caused by high pore fluid pressure at the plate interface: an implication from two-dimensional model calculations

A recent tomographic study proposed that high-pore pressure in the deeper portion of the locked zone of a subduction thrust resulting from metamorphic dehydration reactions may cause long-term slow slip events. The study used the concept of 'critical fault stiffness', which derives from laboratory-derived rate- and state-dependent friction laws. To test the proposition, we execute 2-D model calculations using laboratory-derived rate- and state-dependent friction laws. Our numerical result is against the proposition, but it can also be explained by the concept of the critical fault stiffness. We agree that metamorphic dehydration reactions definitely produce a bulk property of high fluid saturation, but we caution that they do not necessarily lead to high-pore pressure in the fault zone.     

Simultaneous time-lapse electrical resistivity inversion

Time-lapse monitoring is a powerful tool for observing dynamic changes in the subsurface. In particular it offers the potential for achieving inversion results with increased fidelity through the inclusion of complementary information from multiple time-steps. This inclusion of complementary information can reduce the need for spatial smoothing, without adding inversion artifacts to the resulting images. Commonly used time-lapse inversion methods include the ratio method, cascaded time-lapse inversion, difference inversion and differencing independent inversions. We introduce two additional methods in which both time-lapse data sets are inverted simultaneously. In the first, called temporally constrained time-lapse inversion, inversion of both datasets is done under a single optimization procedure and constraints are added to the regularization to ensure that the changes from one time to another are smooth. In the second method, called simultaneous time-lapse inversion, the inversions at time 1 and time 2 are performed simultaneously and constraints of smoothness and closeness to a reference model are applied to the difference image produced at each iteration, and subsequently, the constraints are updated at each iteration. Through both a numerical and a field example we compare the results of common time-lapse inversion methods as well as the introduced approaches. We found that of the commonly used time-lapse inversion methods the difference inversion method produced the best resolution of time-lapse changes and was the most robust in the presence of noise. However, we found that the alternative approach of simultaneous time-lapse inversion produced the best reconstruction of modeled EC changes in the numerical example and easily interpretable high resolution difference images in the field example. Moreover, there was less tailoring of regularization parameters with our simultaneous time-lapse approach, suggesting that it will lend itself well to an automated inversion code.