Results from air-injection and tracer testing in the Upper Tiva Canyon, Bow Ridge Fault, and upper Paintbrush contact alcoves of the Exploratory Studies Facility, August 1994 through July 1996, Yucca Mountain, Nevada

LeCain, Gary D.

doi:10.2172/656613

Cited by 14 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Experience with pneumatic injection and gaseous tracer experiments in fractured rocks is limited; much of this has been accumulated in recent years by the University of Arizona at the Apache Leap Research Site (ALRS) near Superior, Arizona, by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) at the ALRS (LeCain, 1995), and at Yucca Mountain in Nevada (LeCain, , 1998LeCain and Walker, 1994). Two research groups from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) also conducted numerous air injection tests at Yucca Mountain (Wang et al, 1998) and in unsaturated fractured basalts at Box Canyon in Idaho (Benito et al, 1998).…”

Section: Type-curve Interpretation Of Transient Single-hole Pneumaticmentioning

confidence: 99%

Type-curve interpretation of transient single-hole pneumatic injection tests in unsaturated fractured tuffs at the Apache Leap Research Site

Illman¹

2000

Theory, Modeling, and Field Investigation in Hydrogeology: A Special Volume in Honor of Shlomo P. Neumans 60th Birthday

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More than 270 single-hole pneumatic tests have been conducted in 6 shallow vertical and inclined boreholes in unsaturated fractured tuffs at the Apache Leap Research Site near Superior, Arizona. Guzman et al. applied a steady-state analysis to late-time data from each test. In this paper, type-curve analyses of transient data from those tests are described, which yielded information about air permeability, skin factor, dimensionless wellbore-storage coefficient, and dimensionality of the flow regime on a nominal scale of 1 m in the immediate vicinity of each test interval. Significant nonlinear effects such as inertia, turbulence, air compressibility, and two-phase flow were expected from air injection into unsaturated fractured tuffs. Type-curve interpretation revealed that the single-hole test data analyzed show little sensitivity to those nonlinearities and the method of linearization. Type-curve analysis was accomplished with the aid of various analytical continuum (radial, spherical) and fracture (horizontal, vertical) flow models as the initial qualitative assessment showed considerable variability of the transient behavior of data at different injection intervals. The fact that transient pressure behavior is not entirely consistent across the site, but varies from one test interval to another, provided a qualitative indication that the site is pneumatically nonuniform and the local rock is heterogeneous. Results show that most data fit the spherical flow type-curve model, implying that flow on the 1-m scale is three dimensional. Air permeabilities obtained from type-curve analyses agree well with values obtained through steady-state analyses. Overall, considerable insight was gained in terms of the local properties of unsaturated fractured rocks, the importance of nonlinear effects, and the phenomenology of airflow through such rocks.

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Section: Type-curve Interpretation Of Transient Single-hole Pneumaticmentioning

confidence: 99%

Type-curve interpretation of transient single-hole pneumatic injection tests in unsaturated fractured tuffs at the Apache Leap Research Site

Illman¹

2000

Theory, Modeling, and Field Investigation in Hydrogeology: A Special Volume in Honor of Shlomo P. Neumans 60th Birthday

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“…Sample holes of this depth and diameter are drilled for all permeability measurements of the nonweathered rock regardless of the absence or presence of the weathering rind. Further, permeability measurements are only acquired at the driest parts of the year, when the outcrop is dry, and after 5 or more snow-and rain-free days in order to avoid bias of the permeability measurements by interstitial water [e.g., LeCain, 1998].…”

Section: A2 Permeability and Porositymentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial distribution of damage around faults in the Joe Lott Tuff Member of the Mount Belknap Volcanics, Utah: A mechanical analog for faulting in pyroclastic deposits on Mars

Okubo

2012

J. Geophys. Res.

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Volcanic ash is thought to comprise a large fraction of the Martian equatorial layered deposits and much new insight into the process of faulting and related fluid flow in these deposits can be gained through the study of analogous terrestrial tuffs. This study identifies a set of fault‐related processes that are pertinent to understanding the evolution of fault systems in fine‐grained, poorly indurated volcanic ash by investigating exposures of faults in the Miocene‐aged Joe Lott Tuff Member of the Mount Belknap Volcanics, Utah. The porosity and granularity of the host rock are found to control the style of localized strain that occurs prior to and contemporaneous with faulting. Deformation bands occur in tuff that was porous and granular at the time of deformation, while fractures formed where the tuff lost its porous and granular nature due to silicic alteration. Non‐localized deformation of the host rock is also prominent and occurs through compaction of void space, including crushing of pumice clasts. Significant off‐fault damage of the host rock, resembling fault pulverization, is recognized adjacent to one analog fault and may reflect the strain rate dependence of the resulting fault zone architecture. These findings provide important new guidelines for future structural analyses and numerical modeling of faulting and subsurface fluid flow through volcanic ash deposits on Mars.

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“…At Yucca Mountain, fracture permeabilities obtained from single-hole pneumatic injection tests (LeCain, 1997(LeCain, , 1998Wang et al, 1998) have been found to vary over four orders of magnitude in the Exploratory Studies Facility (ESF). These data, all collected in the subunits of TSw, indicate that heterogeneity of fracture permeability can be quite large within a stratum.…”

Section: Estimates Of Fracture Permeability Variability and Spatial Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stochastic simulations of steady state unsaturated flow in a three-layer, heterogeneous, dual continuum model of fractured rock

Illman

Hughson

2005

Journal of Hydrology

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Results from air-injection and tracer testing in the Upper Tiva Canyon, Bow Ridge Fault, and upper Paintbrush contact alcoves of the Exploratory Studies Facility, August 1994 through July 1996, Yucca Mountain, Nevada

Cited by 14 publications

References 6 publications

Type-curve interpretation of transient single-hole pneumatic injection tests in unsaturated fractured tuffs at the Apache Leap Research Site

Type-curve interpretation of transient single-hole pneumatic injection tests in unsaturated fractured tuffs at the Apache Leap Research Site

Spatial distribution of damage around faults in the Joe Lott Tuff Member of the Mount Belknap Volcanics, Utah: A mechanical analog for faulting in pyroclastic deposits on Mars

Stochastic simulations of steady state unsaturated flow in a three-layer, heterogeneous, dual continuum model of fractured rock

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