A Comparison between Hydrogeophysical Characterization Approaches Applied to Granular Porous and Fractured Media

This paper compares the use of geophysical data for subsurface characterization based on data collected at two different DOE field sites: the NABIR South Oyster site in Virginia and the Oak Ridge Field Research Center in Tennessee. The granular porous aquifer at the first site is relatively homogenous. At this site, petrophysical relationships between hydrogeological properties measured at wellbore locations and geophysical attributes could be developed using co-located wellbore and tomographic data. However, the aquifer at the second site is fractured and very heterogeneous, and reliable petrophysical relationships could not be developed using such co-located data sets. Different Bayesian models have been developed based on specific field conditions of the two sites to incorporate geophysical data into hydrogeological parameter estimation. Results show that despite the difference in aquifer heterogeneity, geophysical data provide useful information for hydrogeological characterization