Withdrawn NCGRT/IAH Australasian Groundwater Conference 2019

Fault-zone investigations into permeability and hydraulic conductivity through the combined use of VWPs and Packer Testing (271)

Amber L. Hughes 1 , Carly Waterhouse 1
  1. Hydrogeology, Klohn Crippen Berger, South Brisbane, QLD, Australia

The heterogeneous nature of fault-zone structure and hydrogeological architecture presents challenges in assessing groundwater supply, potential contaminant transport as well as the development of numerical groundwater models (Ball et al. 2010). In addition, in-situ permeability and hydrogeological data on fault-zones is sparse and entirely fault-zone-specific (Caine, Evans, and Forster 1996; Ball et al. 2010). In 2019, a drilling program was designed and completed by KCB in order to understand the hydrogeological behaviour of three regional, largely north-south trending, thrust faults located within the Gladstone Region of Queensland, Australia. Two sets of bores were drilled at each fault location. The first bore (drilled perpendicular to the fault plane) had a VWP installed in the location of the fault plane, providing important information about the nature of the fault and its material properties. The second bore (drilled perpendicular to the dipping rock units) was used to test the response of the fault and adjacent rock units using a series of interval-based packer tests conducted during drilling. The VWPs recorded piezometric responses to the packer testing which assisted in providing fault, and surrounding rock, permeability interpretations. The information was subsequently used in the development of a robust groundwater flow model and groundwater impact predictions.

  1. Ball, Lyndsay B, Shemin Ge, Jonathan Saul Caine, André Revil, and Abderrahim Jardani. 2010. “Constraining Fault-Zone Hydrogeology through Integrated Hydrological and Geoelectrical Analysis.” Hydrogeology Journal 18 (5): 1057–1067.
  2. Caine, Jonathan Saul, James P Evans, and Craig B Forster. 1996. “Fault Zone Architecture and Permeability Structure.” Geology 24 (11): 1025–1028.