Quantitative estimation of water storage and residence time in the epikarst with time-lapse refraction seismic

Pierre-Yves Galibert (1)

1 UPMC - Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6

The hydrodynamic characterization of the epikarst, the shallow part of the unsaturated zone in karstic systems, has always been challenging for geophysical methods. This work investigates the feasibility of coupling time-lapse refraction seismic data with petrophysical and hydrologic models for the quantitative determination of water storage and residence time at shallow depth in carbonate rocks. The Biot–Gassmann fluid substitution model describing the seismic velocity variations with water saturation at low frequencies needs to be modified for this lithology. I propose to include a saturation-dependent rock-frame weakening to take into account water–rock interactions. A Bayesian inversion workflow is presented to estimate the water content from seismic velocities measured at variable saturations. The procedure is tested first with already published laboratory measurements on core samples, and the results show that it is possible to estimate the water content and its uncertainty. The validated procedure is then applied to a time-lapse seismic study to locate and quantify seasonal water storage at shallow depth along a seismic profile. The residence time of the water in the shallow layers is estimated by coupling the time-lapse seismic measurements with rainfall chronicles, simple flow equations, and the petrophysical model. The daily water input computed from the chronicles is used to constraint the inversion of seismic velocities for the daily saturation state and the hydrodynamic parameters of the flow model. The workflow is applied to a real monitoring case, and the results show that the average residence time of the water in the epikarst is generally around three months, but it is only 18 days near an infiltration pathway. During the winter season, the residence times are three times shorter in response to the increase in the effective rainfall.

Mots clés: Time-lapse; Seismics; Groundwater; Petrophysics; Inversion

Domaines: Géophysique [physics.geo-ph]

Pierre-Yves Galibert. Quantitative estimation of water storage and residence time in the epikarst with time-lapse refraction seismic. Geophysical Prospecting, 2016, 64 (2), pp.431-444. ⟨10.1111/1365-2478.12272⟩. ⟨hal-01329483⟩