TY - JOUR
T1 - A poly morphological landform approach for hydrogeological applications in heterogeneous glacial sediments
AU - Klint, Knud Erik S.
AU - Nilsson, Bertel
AU - Troldborg, Lars
AU - Jakobsen, Peter Roll
N1 - Funding Information:
The presented results are part of the research projects REMTEC (Innovative Remediation and Assessment Technologies for Contaminated Soil and Groundwater), NICA (Nitrate reduction in a geological heterogeneous catchment) funded by the Danish Council for Strategic Research, and the KUPA project (Development of concept for evaluating areas vulnerable to the use of pesticides) funded by the Danish Parliament. Special thanks to Jens Christian Refsgaard and Peter Gravesen (both GEUS) for constructive comments on the manuscript in progress. We thank Mark Randall for valuable editorial comments. Suggestions for revisions given by Jean-Michel Lemieux, Nick Eyles and an anonymous reviewer have been very helpful to further improve the paper.
PY - 2013/9
Y1 - 2013/9
N2 - The 'poly morphological (PM) concept' is used to assess geological heterogeneity in glacial sediments and to evaluate groundwater recharge to aquifers, especially those underlying clay till. The novelty of the PM concept is that it enhances the knowledge of, especially, heterogeneity of till units in geological models by using superimposed geomorphological units with typical sediment types related to the individual landforms. The PM concept is demonstrated through the construction of a poly morphological map for Zealand in Denmark and an aggregated map comparing clay-till-thickness distribution within individual PM types. The hydrogeological applicability of the PM concept was tested with a physical-based distributed 3D hydrological model. The aggregated PM map was compared with fracture and redox conditions at 21 field sites to evaluate the PM-type correlation to: (1) till thickness, (2) thickness of the reduced-till zone, and (3) depth to the zone with fracture spacing >1 m The results show that the till thickness is a critical parameter for the formation of fracture networks in clay till, and that fracture density decreases in till thicker than 8-10 m. However, the amount of data is still inadequate for statistically proving the PM concept.
AB - The 'poly morphological (PM) concept' is used to assess geological heterogeneity in glacial sediments and to evaluate groundwater recharge to aquifers, especially those underlying clay till. The novelty of the PM concept is that it enhances the knowledge of, especially, heterogeneity of till units in geological models by using superimposed geomorphological units with typical sediment types related to the individual landforms. The PM concept is demonstrated through the construction of a poly morphological map for Zealand in Denmark and an aggregated map comparing clay-till-thickness distribution within individual PM types. The hydrogeological applicability of the PM concept was tested with a physical-based distributed 3D hydrological model. The aggregated PM map was compared with fracture and redox conditions at 21 field sites to evaluate the PM-type correlation to: (1) till thickness, (2) thickness of the reduced-till zone, and (3) depth to the zone with fracture spacing >1 m The results show that the till thickness is a critical parameter for the formation of fracture networks in clay till, and that fracture density decreases in till thicker than 8-10 m. However, the amount of data is still inadequate for statistically proving the PM concept.
KW - Conceptual model
KW - Denmark
KW - Glacial geology
KW - Groundwater recharge
KW - Heterogeneity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84882958466&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10040-013-1011-2
DO - 10.1007/s10040-013-1011-2
M3 - Article
SN - 1431-2174
VL - 21
SP - 1247
EP - 1264
JO - Hydrogeology Journal
JF - Hydrogeology Journal
IS - 6
ER -