3-D Time-lapse Electrical Resistivity Monitoring of Injected CO2 in a Shallow Aquifer

摘要

Contamination of potable groundwater by leaking CO2 is a potential risk of carbon sequestration. With the help of a field experiment, we investigate if surface electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) can detect dissolved CO2 in a shallow aquifer. For this purpose, we injected CO2 at a depth of 5 and 10 m and monitored its migration using 320 surface electrodes on a 126 m × 20 m grid. A fully automated acquisition system continuously collected data and uploaded it into an online database. The large amount of data allows for time-series analysis for data quality and noise estimation. A baseline inversion reveals the geology at the site consisting of aeolian sands near the surface and glacial sands below 5 m depth. Time-lapse inversions clearly image the dissolved CO2 plume with decreased electrical resistivity values. We can follow the CO2 plume as it spreads and moves with the groundwater, and the spatial distribution of the plume agrees well with direct measurements of the groundwater resistivity. Future work will include improved time-series analyses and quantitative comparison with the groundwater resistivity measurements.