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Mont Terri Rock Laboratory, 20 Years pp 87–106Cite as

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Comparative study of methods to estimate hydraulic parameters in the hydraulically undisturbed Opalinus Clay (Switzerland)

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Part of the book series: Swiss Journal of Geosciences Supplement ((SWISSGEO,volume 5))

Abstract

The deep borehole (DB) experiment gave the opportunity to acquire hydraulic parameters in a hydraulically undisturbed zone of the Opalinus Clay at the Mont Terri rock laboratory (Switzerland). Three methods were used to estimate hydraulic conductivity and specific storage values of the Opalinus Clay formation and its bounding formations through the 248 m deep borehole BDB-1: application of a Poiseuilletype law involving petrophysical measurements, spectral analysis of pressure time series and in situ hydraulic tests. The hydraulic conductivity range in theOpalinusClay given by the first method is 2 × 10–14–6 × 10–13 m s–1 for a cementation factor ranging between 2 and 3. These results show low vertical variability whereas in situ hydraulic tests suggest higher values up to 7 × 10–12 m s–1. Core analysis provides economical estimates of the homogeneous matrix hydraulic properties but do not account for heterogeneities at larger scale such as potential tectonic conductive features. Specific storage values obtained by spectral analysis are consistent and in the order of 10−6 m–1, while formulations using phase shift and gain between pore pressure signals were found to be inappropriate to evaluate hydraulic conductivity in the Opalinus Clay.The values obtained are globally in good agreementwith the ones obtained previously at the rock laboratory.

Editorial handling: P. Bossart and A. G. Milnes.

This is paper #4 in the Mont Terri Special Issue of the Swiss Journal of Geosciences (see Bossart et al. 2017, Table 3 and Fig. 7).

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Acknowledgements

This study was performed in the framework of the deep borehole (DB) experiment, financed by six partners of the International Mont Terri Consortium (swisstopo, NAGRA, BGR, GRS, NWMO, IRSN). The authors would like to thank Karam Kontar and Jocelyn Gisiger (Solexperts AG) for their technical support and realisation of hydraulic testing, as well as Christelle Courbet (IRSN) and Benoȋt Paris (INTERA) for advices on numerical interpretation. The MuStat v1 package used in this paper is the result of previous works respectively done by: Alain Mangin (CNRS, Laboratoire d‘écologie des hydrosystèmes de Moulis), David Labat (Géosciences Envionnement Toulouse), Rachid Ababou (CNRS/INPT/IMFT), Hassane Fatmi (PhD at IRSN and CNRS/INPT/IMFT) and David Bailly (TREES Institute). The constructive and careful reviews of Prof. Z. Jiang (Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia) and Prof. P. Cosenza (University of Poitiers, France) contributed to improve the initial version of this article and are greatly acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire, 31 Allée du Général Leclerc, 92260, Fontenay-aux-Roses, France

    Catherine Yu & Jean-Michel Matray

  2. Aix Marseille Université UMR 6635 CEREGE Technopôle Environnement Arbois-Méditerranée, BP80, 13545, Aix-en-Provence Cedex 4, France

    Catherine Yu & Julio Gonçalvès

  3. Federal Office of Topography Swisstopo, Seftigenstrasse 264, 3084, Wabern, Switzerland

    David Jaeggi

  4. Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), Stilleweg 2, 30655, Hannover, Germany

    Werner Gräsle

  5. Global Research for Safety (GRS), Schwertnergasse 1, 50667, Cologne, Germany

    Klaus Wieczorek

  6. National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste (Nagra), Hardstrasse 73, 5430, Wettingen, Switzerland

    Tobias Vogt

  7. Nuclear Waste Management Organization, 22 St. Clair Ave. E.,, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Erik Sykes

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  1. Swiss Geological Survey Swisstopo , Wabern, Switzerland

    Paul Bossart

  2. Swiss Federal Inst. of Tech. ETH Zurich , Zürich, Switzerland

    Alan Geoffrey Milnes

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Yu, C. et al. (2018). Comparative study of methods to estimate hydraulic parameters in the hydraulically undisturbed Opalinus Clay (Switzerland). In: Bossart, P., Milnes, A. (eds) Mont Terri Rock Laboratory, 20 Years. Swiss Journal of Geosciences Supplement, vol 5. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70458-6_5

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