Development of a Methodology for Regional Evaluation of Confining Bed Integrity

摘要

For safe underground injection of liquid waste, confining formations must be thick, extensive, and have low permeability. Recognition of faults that extend from the potential injection zone to underground sources of drinking water is critical for evaluation of confining-bed integrity. Nonproprietary geologic information from ordinary sources can be used to map localities suspected to be injection-insensitive. Materials include remote-sensing imagery, aerial photographs, surface-geologic maps, and subsurface-geologic maps; structural geologic maps, thickness maps and initial-production maps are useful. Persons with limited experience can use data bases and computer mapping to generate well-suited information, but input by experienced geologists is necessary.