High-resolution truncated plurigaussian simulations for the characterization of heterogeneous formations

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the use of high-resolution truncated plurigaussian simulations to accurately characterize complex heterogeneous geological formations, aiding in contaminant migration assessment at a major Swiss site.

Contribution

It introduces an application of the truncated plurigaussian simulation method for detailed geological modeling of heterogeneous formations, specifically for contaminant transport analysis.

Findings

Effective modeling of heterogeneous formations using truncated plurigaussian simulations.

Successful application to a major Swiss contaminated site.

Enhanced understanding of contaminant migration in complex geological media.

Abstract

Integrating geological concepts, such as relative positions and proportions of the different lithofacies, is of highest importance in order to render realistic geological patterns. The truncated plurigaussian simulation method provides a way of using both local and conceptual geological information to infer the distributions of the facies and then those of hydraulic parameters. The method (Le Loc'h and Galli 1994) is based on the idea of truncating at least two underlying multi-Gaussian simulations in order to create maps of categorical variable. In this manuscript we show how this technique can be used to assess contaminant migration in highly heterogeneous media. We illustrate its application on the biggest contaminated site of Switzerland. It consists of a contaminant plume located in the lower fresh water Molasse on the western Swiss Plateau. The highly heterogeneous character of this formation calls for efficient stochastic methods in order to characterize transport processes.