PERMEABILITY IN A LARGE CRYSTALLINE WATERSHED

Sékouba Oulare*, Fernand Kouame Koffi*, René Therrien**, Bachir Saley Mahaman*

*UFR des Sciences de la terre et des Ressources Minières (UFR-STRM), Université d’Abidjan-Cocody Cocody, Côte d’Ivoire
** Faculté des Sciences et de Génie, Département de Géologie et de Génie Géologique, Université Laval, Pavillon Adrien-
Pouliot, local 4507 Québec (Québec) G1K 7P4, CANADA

Abstract

In crystalline rock, permeability is controlled by the geometric characteristics of the fracturing. The most common geometric characteristics used to study permeability focused on aperture or connectivity of fractures which are difficult to define at regional scale. In this paper, the possibility to estimate permeability from the number of fractures or fracture density was studied using an equivalent porous medium model (continuum model). The numerical model was calibrated by inverse modeling and the evaluation of the calibration results is presented. It was shown that, the permeability of the fractured aquifer can be efficiently estimated from the fracture density using a continuum model.

Keywords: permeability, crystalline rock, numerical model, inverse modeling

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