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Efforts to simulate subsurface flow of water and fate and transport of contaminants are commonly frustrated by the inability of models to represent the complex heterogeneity of the aquifer. Sedimentologists typically describe the complexity of aquifer materials in outcrop but mostly provide "soft" data that are not readily incorporated into hydrological models. We have initiated a multi-disciplinary research effort aimed at bridging the gap between sedimentological and hydrological approaches to characterizing heterogeneity. We apply an outcrop-analog approach, comparable to that used in petroleum exploration. Our ongoing study site is located in Miocene rift-basin fill alluvial sediment of the Tesuque Formation north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Traditional sedimentological studies are integrated with the formation of GIS databases, in-situ measurement of permeability with a portable air permeameter, along with geostatistical simulations and flow modeling. The field site can be treated as a hypothetical subsurface volume, which can be simulated by various geostatistical tools using selected conditioning data from proxy "wells" (stratigraphic sections). Performance of various simulations against the known stratigraphy and permeability distribution and consequences of contaminant-transport models applied to both simulated and known geology/hydrology will improve an understanding of how sedimentological data can contribute to generating better representations of heterogeneity.
Collaborators:
Dr. Michael E. Campana, University of New Mexico
Dr. Sean McKenna, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque
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Publications:
Hydrostratigraphic attributes of hanging-wall derived piedmont facies in asymmetric graben
G.A. Smith
SEPM Congress Program and Abstracts, v. 1, p. 114-115, 1995.
Description of lithofacies variability as an outcrop-analogue for characterizing aquifer heterogeneity in the Rio Grande rift
A.J. Kuhle and G.A. Smith
Abstracts of Presentations, 16th Annual American Geophysical Union Hydrology Days, p. 4, 1996.
Sedimentology of Miocene alluvial-slope deposits, Española Basin, Rio Grande rift: An outcrop analogue for subsurface heterogeneity
Andrika Kuhle
University of New Mexico, M.S. thesis, 1997.
Sedimentological and structural controls on groundwater flow in the Tesuque aquifer, north of Santa Fe, New Mexico
Claudia Borchert
University of New Mexico, M.S. thesis, (completion expected 2001).
Outcrop-analog investigation of the relationship between facies distribution and permeability heterogeneity, alluvial-slope facies of the Miocene Tesuque Formation, near Española, New Mexico
Michael Gaud
University of New Mexico, M.S. thesis (completion expected 2001).
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