Drought and water scarcity constrain the socioeconomic development of many (semi-)arid regions of Southern Africa. Moreover, due to the increase of water withdrawals upstream, the Limpopo River is no longer perennial in Mozambique. Fortunately, its river bed can store significant amounts of freshwater, because of the occurrence of thick and often coarse sand deposits formed through pronounced dryland weathering, erosion, and sedimentation in the river channel. Such so-called “sand rivers” exist in many parts of semi-arid Africa and have varying configurations and hydrological conditions. The current research aims to comparatively assess the Limpopo sand river aquifer in terms of recharge and discharge dynamics, storage potential, and interactions with the surface water flow, as a function of its specific hydrological conditions: its large size, location downstream of a dam releasing permanent ecological flow, and its relatively undeveloped state. For this purpose field investigations were carried out at two sites, involving groundwater level measurements, 2D geoelectrical surveying, water chemical and stable isotope analysis, and sediment classification. These investigations reveal the occurrence of medium to coarse sands with thicknesses that can reach 10–15 m, dropping to 2–5 m in the main river channel, underlain by less permeable clays and silts. Analysis of the river level shows that large parts of the sand river are flooded almost every year, providing optimal conditions for recurring and rapid recharge of the system (confirmed by infiltration tests) through two mechanisms: direct infiltration of surface runoff and lateral flow toward non-flooded areas of the river valley, also confirmed by the chemical and isotope study. During the dry season, groundwater provides base flow to the river and the average water level drop in the sand river system is about 1.8 m. The connectivity with the river margins is limited, due to the clayey nature of the river bank sediment, but local paleochannels can result in a continuation of sand layers. Hydrological processes controlling the water quality are evapoconcentration, mixing of discharging groundwater with the perennial surface water flow, and to a minor extent mineral dissolution, with the groundwater being of Ca-HCO3 type. The combination of the large size, high permeability, and frequent flooding of the sand river deposits provides optimal conditions for groundwater abstraction, requiring additional assessment of the impact on riparian vegetation and downstream users.
Usually, fracture sampling studies comprise the collection of several fracture samples, which involve many fracture clusters. Grouping fracture samples into structural domains is generally useful for geologists, hydrogeologists, and geomechanicians as a region of fractured rocks is subdivided into sub-regions with similar behavior in terms of their hydromechanical properties. One of the common methods used for grouping fracture samples into structural domains considers the fracture orientation of clusters and ignores several fracture parameters, such as fracture spacing, aperture, and persistence, which are important for fluid circulation in the rock mass.In this study, we proposed a new cluster-based similarity method that considered the orientation of clusters as well as clusters’ aperture, persistence, and fracture spacing. Field investigations were conducted in the Grenville geological province of the Canadian Shield in the Lanaudière region, Quebec, Canada, where fractures were sampled from 30 outcrops and four boreholes. The proposed method is more suitable than other methods, and has applications in hydrogeology, rock mechanics, and especially in studies of fluid circulation in the rock mass. In addition, a method for the compartmentalization of a given study area into structural domains by means of Voronoi diagrams was also proposed.
<p>It is well known that fracture networks play an important role in fluid circulation in crystalline rock mass. Given that crystalline basements have a negligible primary porosity (porosity of the rock matrix) in comparison to their secondary porosity (porosity due to fractures), fracture characterization generally constitute the most important parameter for the determination of the hydraulic characteristics of the rock mass. Fracture characterization may involve fracture samples from different surveying sources such as outcrops, tunnels and boreholes. For a matter of building a conceptual model, for a study area, the geologist compartmentalizes the study area into several structural homogeneous sub-areas. Those homogeneous sub-areas are called structural domains and how fracture samples are grouped in the same structural domain is the question treated in this presentation.</p><p>From field investigations to grouping fracture samples into structural domains, geologists have used methods that are mainly based on the geologist experience and use major structural elements such as faults as domain boundaries. In the case of total absence or limited presence of major structural elements, grouping fracture samples into structural domains becomes complicated. Therefore, several statistical methods which use fracture characteristics have been developed to assist the geologist for that matter. Those methods can be classified into two approaches, which have been introduced by Miller (1983) and Mahtab and Yegulalp (1984). Miller&#8217;s approach consists of grouping fracture samples which are totally homogeneous with regard to the fracture characteristic(s) of interest, especially fracture orientation. On the other hand, Mahtab and Yegulalp&#8217;s approach consists of grouping fracture samples which share a similar fracture set. While, Miller&#8217;s approach got a lot attention, especially in the engineering fields, Mahtab and Yegulalp&#8217;s method has the advantage of allowing taking into consideration the blind zones of fracture samples as in practice a fracture sample can hardly be constituted by all the fracture sets of its belonging structural domain. However, Mahtab and Yegulalps&#8217;s method ignore fracture characteristics such as fracture spacing, aperture and persistence which are important for fluid circulation in the rock mass.</p><p>This presentation proposes a new method that improves Mahtab and Yegulalp&#8217;s method by including fracture characteristics such as aperture, persistence and fracture spacing in addition to the fracture orientation considered in the original method. The field investigations took place in the Greenville geological province of the Canadian shield, in Lanaudi&#232;re region, in Quebec; where fractures were sampled from 30 outcrops and four boreholes. The new method adds a higher level of confidence with regard to the similarity of samples within a structural domain. As a result of the new method, each structural domain has a unique combination of fracture set(s) characteristics which characterize its fracture network. The structural domain compartmentalization impact on the hydrogeological behavior of water flow within the rock mass constitutes the topic of an ongoing research project.</p>
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