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VIKRANT SHARMA
The thickness of the capillary fringe varies depending on the pore sizes in the medium. In a silt or clay, the capillary fringe can be more than a meter thick, while the capillary fringe in a coarse gravel would be less than a millimeter thick.
An aquifer is defined as a saturated permeable geological unit that is permeable enough to yield economic quantities of water to wells. The most common aquifers are unconsolidated sand and gravels, but permeable sedimentary rocks such as sandstone and limestone, and heavily fractured or weathered volcanic and crystalline rocks can also be classified as aquifers. An aquitard is a geological unit that is permeable enough to transmit water in significant quantities when viewed over large areas and long periods, but its permeability is not sufficient to justify production wells being placed in it. Clays, loams and shale are typical aquitards. An aquiclude is an impermeable geological unit that does not transmit water at all. Dense unfractured igneous or metamorphic rocks are typical aquicludes. In nature, truly impermeable geological units seldom occur; all of them leak to some extent, and must therefore be classified as aquitards. In practice, however, geological units can be classified as aquicludes when their permeability is several orders of magnitude lower than that of an overlying or underlying aquifer. *** These definitions are imprecise with respect to permeability.
Aquifer Types
Aquifer Types
Sandstone
Carbonate Plutonic
Volcanic
Unconsolidated Aquifers
Unconsolidated deposits are geological formations formed by the accumulation of particles that are transported by gravity, water, wind or ice, in riverbeds, lakeside or marine settings. They usually comprise of sands and gravels of varying geological origin. Fluvial deposits are made up of the alluvial materials of rivers and their terraces. Deltaic deposits accumulate at river mouths. In general such deposits are recent in geological time. Its porosity is due to voids or space between the rock particles, or single porosity.
Determination of depth, thickness and extension of permeable deposits and confining layers.
Aquifers that are mapped as unconsolidated sand and gravel can be grouped into four broad categories: basin-fill or valley-fill aquifers blanket sand and gravel aquifers glacial-deposit aquifers stream-valley aquifers All four types have intergranular porosity and all contain water primarily under unconfined or water-table conditions.
Semi-consolidated Aquifers
Semi-consolidated aquifers consist of sand interbedded with silt, clay, and minor carbonate. The aquifers are typically of fluvial, deltaic, and shallow marine origin. The varied depositional environments of these sediments have caused complex interbedding of fine and coarse-grained materials. Accordingly, some aquifers are thin and local whereas others are thick and may extend over hundreds of square kilometres. The Ravenscrag Formation is a Saskatchewan example of a semiconsolidated aquifer.
Chemical
Carbons Natural Hydrocarbons
Sandstone Aquifers
Secondary openings, such as joints and fractures, along with bedding planes, typically transmit most of the groundwater in bedrock sandstone aquifers. Sandstone retains only a small part of the intergranular pore space that was present before the rock was consolidated. Compaction and cementation greatly reduce the primary pore space.
Carbonate Aquifers
The most important are the carbonate rocks among the consolidated sedimentary rocks. Chalk, limestone and dolomites they vary considerably in density, porosity and permiability - some are considered to be confining units, whereas others are among the most productive aquifers known. Most of the carbonate-rock aquifers consist of limestone, but dolomite and marble locally yield water. Carbonate rocks originate as sedimentary deposits in marine environments. Compaction, cementation, and dolomitization processes act on the deposits as they undergo lithification and greatly change their porosity and permeability.
The amount of water held in a rock depends upon its porosity. Porosity is controlled by the grain size and shape, the degree of sorting, the extent of chemical cementation and the amount of fracturing.
V pores Vtotal
Sieve Analysis
Hydrometer Analysis
L1
L2
Flaky: Flaky particles have very low sphericity usually 0.01 or less
. These particles are predominantly clay minerals.
Real Question
How much of the stored water of the aquifer is available for pumping?
For saturated conditions soil moisture content (theta) is equal to porosity, theta(m) is mobile water theta(MRS) is soil moisture deciphered by MRS.
Values from the tables can vary substantially from the actual values. Hence we can use the tables for an initial guess, however these values could be inefficient and/or inaccurate.
Effective porosity is sometimes obtained from other measured parameters, such as specific yield, or total porosity minus specific retention or residual water content. This is not correct. Specific yield and effective porosity are two different parameters. These two parameters have in fact comparable values for coarse rock materials (because specific retention is small) where Sy ne. However in fine grained rocks and particularly in clayey materials, Sy is low while ne is high so the Sy differs substantially from ne. Effective porosity defined in context of transport is different from effective porosity that pertains to drainage and capillary processes.
Texture class
762 338
23.56 5.98
Sandy loam
Loam Silt loam Sandy clay loam Clay loam Silty clay loam Sandy clay Silty clay Clay
666
0.453 (0.351-0.555)
0.463 (0.375-0.551) 0.501 (0.420-0.582) 0.398 (0.332-0.464)
0.041 (-0.024-0.106)
0.027 (-0.020-0.074) 0.015 (-0.028-0.058) 0.068 (-0.001-0.137)
0.412 (0.283-0.541)
0.434 (0.334-0.534) 0.486 (0.394-0.578) 0.330 (0.235-0.425)
0.378 (0.140-0.616)
0.252 (0.086-0.418) 0.234 (0.105-0.363) 0.319 (0.079-0.559)
0.207 (0.126-0.288)
0.207 (0.195-0.345) 0.330 (0.258-0.402) 0.255 (0.186-0.324)
0.095 (0.031-0.159)
0.117 (0.069-0.165) 0.133 (0.078-0.188) 0.148 (0.085-0.211)
0.246
2.18
366
0.146
0.20
689
0.105
0.20
45
0.091
0.12
127
0.092
0.10
291
0.079
0.06
Lubczynski, M.W. and Roy, J., 2007. Use of MRS for hydrogeological system parametrization and modeling. Table 1 Boletin Geologico y Minero pp 514
Methods for Obtaining Effective Porosity Lab Measurements I Tracer Column Testing
For traditional solute-transport modeling, effective porosity (ne) can be defined as the ratio between Darcy flux and seepage velocity, where q is experimental Darcy flux (specific discharge) and v is seepage velocity (or velocity of a conservative tracer). Advective and dispersive processes are active within the pore spaces designated as effective porosity.
Methods for Obtaining Effective Porosity Lab Measurements I Tracer Column Testing
Assuming it is a chemical and physical equilibrium transport, we use this ADE (Advection Dispersion Equation).
Assuming no retardation , the traditional column testing approach can utilize the analytical solution of a onedimensional version of the above ADE. The relative concentration point (c/co=0.5) describes solute moving at the average velocity and for a nonreactive tracer c/co=0.5 should occur when one pore volume of solution has flowed from the column. Using the measured elapse time, t0.5 at c/co=0.5, the known column length, L, and experimental Darcy flux, q, the effective porosity can be calculated.
Tables Lab Experiments Tracer Tests (CXTFIT) MRS (50 m 60000; 100 m 90000; 150 m 130000)
The hydraulic properties can be measured in the field or laboratory but can also be assessed in general terms by consideration of the overall aquifer geology.
The amount of water held in a rock depends upon its porosity. Porosity is controlled by the grain size and shape, the degree of sorting, the extent of chemical cementation and the amount of fracturing. The amount of interconnected pore space that is available for fluid flow is termed the effective porosity. Porosity does not provide a direct measure of the amount of water that will drain out of the aquifer because some of the water will remain in the rock, retained around individual grains by surface-tension forces. That part of the groundwater that will drain from the aquifer is termed the specific yield, and the part that is held in the aquifer is called the specific retention.
The hydraulic properties can be measured in the field or laboratory but can also be assessed in general terms by consideration of the overall aquifer geology.
Hydraulic conductivity depends on both the properties of the aquifer and the density and viscosity of the water. - concentrations of dissolved minerals and temperature - increase in water temperature from 5C to about 30C, will double the hydraulic conductivity and will double the rate of groundwater flow. Not a problem in deep aquifers. In some shallow aquifers in areas of climate extremes or in particular situations involving waste hot water and industrial effluent the flow rates may be affected by the temperature. Hence always take the temperature of pumped water in the field tests. The property of a rock that controls the hydraulic conductivity is its intrinsic permeability (k), and is constant for an aquifer regardless of the fluids flowing through it, applying equally well to oil, gas and water. Intrinsic permeability can be calculated when fluid density and viscosity are known.