Permeability scaling relationships of volcanic tuff from core to field scale measurements
Abstract
Abstract A recent chemical explosive test in P-Tunnel at the Nevada National Security Site, Nevada, USA, was conducted to better understand how signals propagate from explosions in the subsurface. A primary signal of interest is the migration of gases that can be used to differentiate chemical from nuclear explosions. Gas migration is highly dependent on the rock permeability which is notoriously difficult to determine experimentally in the field due to a potentially large dependence on the scale over which measurements are made. Here, we present pre-explosion permeability estimates to characterize the geologic units surrounding the recent test. Permeability measurements were made at three scales of increasing size: core samples (≈2 cm), borehole packer system tests (≈1 m), and a pre-shot cavity pressurization test (> 10 m) across ten tuff units. Permeability estimates based on core measurements showed little difference from borehole packer tests. However, permeability in most rock units calibrated from cavity pressurization tests resulted in higher permeability estimates by up to two orders of magnitude. Here, we demonstrate that the scale of the measurement significantly impacts the characterization efforts of hydraulic properties in volcanic tuff, and that local-scale measurements (< 10 m scale) do not incorporate enough heterogeneity to accurately predict field-scale flow and mass transport.
Article Details
Authors (134)
Dolan D. Lucero
S. Michelle Bourret
John P. Ortiz
Bradley G. Fritz
Miles A. Bodmer
Jason E. Heath
Kristopher L. Kuhlman
Hakim Boukhalfa
Shawn Otto
Souheil Ezzedine
Barry L. Roberts
R. Charles Choens
Mark A. Person
Philip H. Stauffer
George Abbott
Thomas Alexander
Ethan Alger
Adan Alvarez
Tarabay Antoun
Graham Auld
Perry Barrow
Tara Bartlett
Miles Bodmer
Kyren Bogolub
Jesse Bonner
Rose Borden
Chris Bradley
Scott Broome
Brian Brown
Jeff Burghardt
Charles Choens
Al Churby
Alexander Couture
Glenn Crosby
Alvaro Cruz-Cabrera
Walter Dekin
Matthew Dietel
Christine Downs
Nicholas Downs
Elizabeth Dzenitis
Eric Eckert
Stephanie Eras
Garrett Euler
Jose Falliner
Jim Fast
Kristine Featherston
Joshua Feldman
Michael Foxe
Clayton Freimuth
Bradley Fritz
Graham Galvin
Sergio Gamboa
Lisa Garner
Jason Gastelum
Jessie Gaylord
David Gessey
Matthew Goodwin
James Griego
Scott Grover
Dylan Hauk
Jason Heath
Austin Holand
James Holdcroft
Will Honjas
Matthew Ingraham
Johnny Jaramillo
Aryton Jenkins
Kyle Jones
Graham Kent
Michael Keogh
Will Kibikas
Hunter Knox
James Knox
Kristopher Kuhlman
Jennifer Larotonda
Dorothy Linneman
Paul Lipkowitz
Gordon MacLeod
Erin McCann
Rob Mellors
Brian Memmott
Jennifer Mendez
Xavier Miller
Manny Montano
Joseph Morris
William Munley
Dea Musa
Steve Myers
Annabelle Navarro
Rose Perea
Jacob Peterson
Gabe Plank
Mike Poskey
Matthew Powell
Amanda Price
Andrew Puyleart
Justin Reppart
Hernan Rico
Barry Roberts
Rebecca Rodd
Mark Rodriguez
Alexander Romanczuk
Melissa Roth
George Salyer
Bill Savran
Cari Seifert
Dana Sirota
Dave Slater
Devon Smith
Ken Smith
Cathy Snelson
Brady Spears
Philip Stauffer
Richard Stead
Mary Stephens
Chris Strickland
Joshua Tafoya
M.’balia Tagoe
Stephanie Teich-McGoldrick
Ben Terry
Ryan Thompson
Margaret Townsend
Greg Tubbs
Reagan Turley
Nichole Valdez
Oleg Vorobiev
Robert White
Aliya Whitehill
Marc Williams
Jennifer Wilson
Lynn Wood
Andrew Wright
Guangping Xu
Cleat Zeiler