Crosshole shear-wave seismic monitoring of an in situ air stripping waste remediation process

Crosshole shear-wave seismic surveys have been used to monitor the distribution of injected air in the subsurface during an in situ air stripping waste remediation project at the Savannah River site in South Carolina. To remove the contaminant, in this case TCE's from a leaking sewer line, two horizontal wells were drilled at depths of 20 m and 52 m. Air was pumped into the lower well and a vacuum was applied to the upper well to extract the injected air. As the air passed through the subsurface, TCE's were dissolved into the gas and brought out the extraction well. Monitoring of the air injection by crosshole shear wave seismics is feasible due to the changes in soil saturation during injection resulting in a corresponding change in seismic velocities. Using a downhole shear-wave source and clamped downhole receiver, two sets of shear-wave data were taken. The first data were taken before the start of air injection, and the second taken during. The difference in travel times between the two data sets were tomographically inverted to obtain velocity differences. Velocity changes ranging up to 3% were mapped corresponding to saturation changes up to 24%. The distribution of these changes shows a desaturation around the position of the injection well with a plume extending in the direction of the extraction well. Layers with higher clay content show distinctively less change in saturation than the regions with higher sand content