Dispersion of radioactive tracers (Energy transport in geological media)

The idea of adding a gamma-emitting tracer like radioiodine to groundwater to measure its velocity offers a new approach to contaminant transport studies. In fact, the groundwater velocity is acquired by measuring, in situ, changes that the flowing water and sedimentary matrix jointly impose on the electromagnetic field generated by radioiodine. The information is encoded in the measured field intensity and it is transmitted continuously from the source to a radiation detector by electromagnetic energy photons. In situ sensed data acquired by scanning dry boreholes provide information on joint variations of static (sedimentary matrix) and dynamic (flowing water) elements of the aquifer over its depth. The spatial structure of the aquifer heterogeneities may be modelled in terms of the space-correlation coefficient between two velocities at two points a specified distance apart. This gives a new method for defining aquifer heterogeneities by the introduction of kinematically significant length scales of velocity variation without invoking Darcy's law and the concept of hydraulic conductivity. The dimensions of aquifer heterogeneities are defined in a longitudinal sense, along the mean flow direction, and in a transverse sense, in the transverse to flow direction. Two hierarchical scales of motion, local and integral, are introduced to characterize the mixing process caused by aquifer heterogeneity and depositional heterogeneity, respectively. At the microscopic and local scales, transport processes are characterized by the three-dimensional diffusion equation with, generally speaking, variable coefficients. At the integral scale, aquifer heterogeneities impose conditions on the transport such that for shallow aquifers the transport may be modelled by the dispersion equation with constant coefficients in one longitudinal dimension. 3 figs., 25 refs