Simulation of Aquifer Architecture and Analysis of Media Heterogeneity

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The architecture of aquifers is of key concern in hydrogeology because it largely controls the transport of subsurface fluids. Although geostatistical models can describe some aspects of aquifer heterogeneity, there is information about geologic processes and environments that has not been accounted for using models of spatial correlation and connectedness. Using sedimentary process simulation, petrophysics, geostatistics, and groundwater modelling, this proposal aims to develop a geologic perspective on aquifer architecture. This simulation approach explicitly considers the geologic processes which control the evolution of aquifers and their resulting patterns of heterogeneity. The proposed work will focus on alluvial environments and study local facies within them. Large-scale sedimentary process modelling provides complete three- dimensional images. The effect of the alluvial architecture on groundwater transport will be analyzed using three-dimensional groundwater flow and particle tracking. Transport through simulated aquifers derived using geostatistical models will be compared with those derived using geologic process simulation. It is the ultimate aim of this work to develop a unified approach to describe aquifer architecture by combining large-scale information developed from geologic process simulation with geostatistical descriptions of local-scale variability.