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Abstract
Determining hydrocarbon plumes in groundwater is typically accomplished through the installation of extensive monitoring wells. Issues of scale and site heterogeneities tend to introduce errors in delineating the extent of contamination and environmental impact. In this study, electromagnetic induction survey was investigated as an alternative technique for mapping petroleum contaminants in the subsurface. The surveys were conducted at a coal mining site near Gillette, Wyoming, using the EM34-XL ground conductivity meter. Data from this survey were validated with known concentrations of diesel compounds detected in groundwater from the study site. Groundwater data correlated well with the electromagnetic survey data, which was used to generate a site model to identify subsurface diesel plumes. To our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to use electromagnetic survey techniques for mapping hydrocarbon contamination in groundwater. Results from this study indicate that this geophysical technique can be an effective tool for assessing subsurface petroleum hydrocarbon sources and plumes at contaminated sites.
Acknowledgments
We thank Joel Mason for assistance in conducting the field EM survey. Financial support for this study was provided by the United States Department of Energy (DoE) through WRI's Cooperative Agreement No. DE-FC26-98FT40322 with DoE, and Rio Tinto Energy America (Gillette, Wyoming, USA). We also thank Marty Stearns and Ryan Duysen of Rio Tinto Energy America for their assistance with this study. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed herein are those of the authors and do not reflect the view of the DOE.
This paper was presented in the SETAC Asia/Pacific 2006 conference held at Peking University, China on September 18–20, 2006.