Magnetic Applications to Subsurface and Groundwater Investigations: A Case Study from Wadi El Assiuti, Egypt

Abstract

Wadi El Assiuti represents a promising area for agricultural development and building new communities far from the overpopulated areas in the Nile Valley. An integrated approach of satellite-based data and geophysical data with borehole data was used for defining the area of interest, the sediment thickness, delineating the subsurface structures, and mapping the depth to the basement rocks, and defining the groundwater aquifers. Findings are: 1) Dramatic changes are detected in the anthropogenic activities at the entrance area of the wadi, making stress and heavy exploitation of the groundwater resources. However, the central and northeastern regions show no development; 2) Several structural trends in the directions of NNW, NW, NE, and E-W are cutting the basement rocks and sedimentary cover; 3) The depth to the basement rocks is increasing eastward from ~2.24 km to ~4.84 km; 4) Three groundwater-bearing reservoirs are represented by the shallow Quaternary, the fractured limestone, and the deep Nubian sandstone aquifers; 5) The deep-seated faults are affecting the area and rising groundwater from the deeper Nubian aquifer along its sub-vertical trend; and 6) The results are informative and used to define the suitable sites for water well drilling.

Sedimentary cover and structural trends affecting the groundwater flow in the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System: Inferences from geophysical, field and geochemical data

“…Moreover, regional gravity and magnetic data are employed to study heat flow in various regions (Mohamed and Al Deep, 2021;Mohamed et al, 2022d). Furthermore, investigations of groundwater and subsurface geology (Al Deep et al, 2021;Mohamed and Ella, 2021), as well as groundwater withdrawal-related land subsidence (Othman, 2019), have all been studied using geophysical data. Mohamed et al (2017) showed that from January 2003 to December 2012, the Nubian aquifer in Sudan and Chad experienced an average yearly recharge of 0.78 ± 0.49 and 1.44 ± 0.42 km 3 /year, respectively.…”

Application of Time-Variable Gravity to Groundwater Storage Fluctuations in Saudi Arabia

“…On a continental scale, other global gravity field datasets from the Earth Gravitational model have been used to investigate the crustal structures (Mohamed and Al Deep, 2021). However, on a smaller scale, airborne and groundbased geophysical data have been used for groundwater studies, subsurface geology (Meneisy and Al Deep, 2020;Al Deep et al, 2021;Mohamed and Ella, 2021), magma chamber geometry (Mohamed et al, 2022), as well as for land subsidence due to groundwater over-pumping (Othman, 2019;Othman and Abotalib, 2019).…”

Integrated Geophysical Assessment of Groundwater Potential in Southwestern Saudi Arabia

“…The magnetic method has been widely applied for delineation of the structural trends of the subsurface structures and estimating the depth of the basement crystalline rocks in many regions (Al-Garni, 2004a;Al-Garni, 2004b; Al-Garni et Al-Garni et al, 2006;Sultan et al, 2009;Al-Garni, 2010). The aeromagnetic data is integrated with remote sensing data to investigate groundwater resources (Meneisy and Al Deep, 2020;Mohamed and Ella, 2021). Bakheit et al (2013) used airborne magnetic data to trace and analyze structural trends to locate the position of tectonic lines and subsurface structures.…”