Improved hydrogeophysical characterization and monitoring through parallel modeling and inversion of time-domain resistivity andinduced-polarization data

Geophysics
By: , and 

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Abstract

Electrical geophysical methods have found wide use in the growing discipline of hydrogeophysics for characterizing the electrical properties of the subsurface and for monitoring subsurface processes in terms of the spatiotemporal changes in subsurface conductivity, chargeability, and source currents they govern. Presently, multichannel and multielectrode data collections systems can collect large data sets in relatively short periods of time. Practitioners, however, often are unable to fully utilize these large data sets and the information they contain because of standard desktop-computer processing limitations. These limitations can be addressed by utilizing the storage and processing capabilities of parallel computing environments. We have developed a parallel distributed-memory forward and inverse modeling algorithm for analyzing resistivity and time-domain induced polar-ization (IP) data. The primary components of the parallel computations include distributed computation of the pole solutions in forward mode, distributed storage and computation of the Jacobian matrix in inverse mode, and parallel execution of the inverse equation solver. We have tested the corresponding parallel code in three efforts: (1) resistivity characterization of the Hanford 300 Area Integrated Field Research Challenge site in Hanford, Washington, U.S.A., (2) resistivity characterization of a volcanic island in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea in Italy, and (3) resistivity and IP monitoring of biostimulation at a Superfund site in Brandywine, Maryland, U.S.A. Inverse analysis of each of these data sets would be limited or impossible in a standard serial computing environment, which underscores the need for parallel high-performance computing to fully utilize the potential of electrical geophysical methods in hydrogeophysical applications.

Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Improved hydrogeophysical characterization and monitoring through parallel modeling and inversion of time-domain resistivity andinduced-polarization data
Series title Geophysics
DOI 10.1190/1.3475513
Volume 75
Issue 4
Year Published 2010
Language English
Publisher Society of Exploration Geophysicists
Contributing office(s) OGW Branch of Geophysics, Office of Ground Water, Toxic Substances Hydrology Program
Description 15 p.
First page WA27
Last page WA41
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