Dan R. Glaser

Engineer Research and Development Center - U.S. Army | ERDC US Army · Signature Physics Branch, Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, Hanover, NH

Nanoparticles have grown in importance over the last decade with significant consumer and industrial applications. Yet, the behavior (fate and transport) of nanoparticles in the environment is virtually unknown. Research is needed to identify, characterize, and monitor nanomaterials in the subsurface. Here, we investigate the spectral induced polar...

Within the last decade efforts in geophysical detection and monitoring of fossil fuel releases into the subsurface have shown increasing success, including the ability to geophysically detect and delineate enhanced and natural biodegradation and remediation activities. The substitution of biofuels, such as ethanol, for fossil fuels is becoming pers...

Subsurface geophysical characterization efforts at a US Army legacy munitions waste site were negatively impacted by dynamic cold regions surface processes including increased snow depth, surface soil erosion and deposition, and seasonal water levels. One concern identified in the characterization efforts showed the time-domain (TD) electromagnetic...

Discrete deep targets are a significant challenge for most surface-based geophysical techniques, even when considering high property contrasts. Generally, surface-based geophysical methods lose lateral and vertical resolution with depth as a result of poor measurement geometry and increased signal attenuation. The poor measurement geometry can be o...

We present the results of a lab-scaled feasibility study to assess the performance of electrical resistivity tomography for detection, characterization, and monitoring of fuel grade ethanol releases to the subsurface. Further, we attempt to determine the concentration distribution of the ethanol from the electrical resistivity tomography data using...

The engineering behavior of frozen soils is critical to the serviceability of civil infrastructure in cold regions. Among various geophysical techniques, electrical resistivity imaging is a promising technique that is cost effective and provides spatially continuous subsurface information. In this study, under freeze–thaw conditions, we carry out l...

The energy balance of permafrost depends on omnidirectional thermodynamic and hydrologic gradients. Frequently, studies focus on top-down permafrost thaw in the form of maximum seasonal surficial thaw depth, i.e. active layer thickness—which is used to approximate permafrost vulnerability. However, bottom-up warming has the potential to degrade per...

Standoff electromagnetic induction (EMI) sensing techniques offer efficient, in-situ characterization of the electrical properties of soils. Galvanic, or direct, electrical measurements of soils offer the ability to further correlate relaxation responses with soil physical properties through pedophysical modeling. Our efforts seek to leverage the b...

Standoff electromagnetic induction (EMI) measurements of complex conductivity and complex permittivity for engineering soil properties have the potential to revolutionize the way the US Army handles route planning and infrastructure assessment. An unmanned aerial system (UAS) based EM platform for soil interrogation would have wide reaching impact...

An evaluation of five petrophysical models for hydraulic permeability prediction was completed for a site-specific set of alluvial sediments. The models considered were the Kozeny-Carmen (1927-1937), Bo¨rner (1996), Revil-Cathles (1999), and two Revil-Florsch (2010) models. The river deposited sediments represent a relatively narrow grain-size dist...

16 Standoff electromagnetic induction (EMI) measurements of complex conductivity and complex 17 permittivity for engineering soil properties have the potential to revolutionize the way the US Army 18 handles route planning and infrastructure assessment. An unmanned aerial system (UAS) based EM 19 platform for soil interrogation would have wide reac...

Standoff electromagnetic induction investigation methods offer the opportunity to remotely and expeditiously interrogate near surface soils for a variety of applications. With many EMI platforms turning to unmanned aerial vehicles for data acquisition, the opportunity to expand standard investigation parameters beyond electrical conductivity alone,...

The ability to effectively detect and map subsurface voids is critical to the mitigation of failing civil infrastructure in regions prone to subsurface dissolution and erosion, including karstic terrain. Geophysical technologies, such as ground-penetrating radar, offer the ability to remotely characterize these potential hazards. When implemented i...

10 An evaluation of five petrophysical models for hydraulic permeability predication was completed 11 for a site-specific set of alluvial sediments. The models considered were the Kozeny-Carmen (1927-12 1937), Börner (1996), Revil-Cathles (1999), and two Revil-Florsch (2010) models. The river deposited 13 sediments represent a relatively narrow gra...

Permafrost thaw affects hydrobiogeochemical cycles and geomorphological evolution in arctic ecosystems. Within the active layer, soil moisture largely controls surface/subsurface energy exchange as the remarkable latent heat of water dampens energy flows into and out of permafrost. Non-invasive geophysical measurement techniques, such as ground pen...

Among many notable effects of a warming climate is the immediate and dramatic impact of sea ice reduction which necessarily alters ranging extents of arctic land animals. Predatory animals are thus forced to explore new areas in search of food, presenting a new risk to human life and health. In recent years, polar bears were found wandering into ar...

Foreword to this Special Issue on Climate Change and the Critical Zone Geophysics Welcome to this special issue on the use of geophysics in climate change and critical zone (CZ) research. The importance of these research areas cannot be overstated, and yet when we were selecting contributions for this special issue, we wrestled with the fundamenta...

In this study, we carry out lab-scale 1D electrical resistivity measurements of frost-susceptible clayey sands, focusing on several major influencing factors including initial water content, soil density, temperature, and freezing/thawing conditions. Soil columns are configured following a four-pole type Wenner electrode array and placed in an envi...

Everchanging arctic climate conditions continue to negatively impact the habitat of the polar bear. The changes cause them to search for food outside of their traditional hunting grounds and potentially encounter humans in locations where interactions weren’t previously documented. One such occurrence in 2018 found a female polar bear at Summit Sci...

The in-situ physical properties of soils are the basis of modeling, inspection, and design for many different fields with applications including agriculture, civil infrastructure, environmental investigations, engineering design, and military based forward mobility. Yet obtaining accurate in-situ physical properties through direct contact field mea...

Moisture content in the critical zone provides information important in a variety of subsurface investigations and modeling efforts including those in civil, geotechnical, agriculture, environmental, and defense research areas. In an effort to improve moisture content mapping techniques we acquired multiple geophysical profiles using geoelectric, s...

The engineering behavior of frozen soils is critical to the serviceability of civil infrastructure in cold regions. Among various geophysical techniques, electrical resistivity imaging is a promising technique that is cost effective and provides continuous subsurface information. In this study, under freeze-thaw conditions, we carry out lab-scale 1...

For nearly forty years, the use of electromagnetic induction (EMI) techniques for soil investigations has been well established in the geophysical community. Invariably the operating frequencies of non-invasively sensing commercial field systems reside well within the quasi-magneto-static regime, usually in the one to tens of kilohertz frequency ra...

Submitted to GEOPHYSICS: Special Issue on Shallow Void, Tunnel, and Other Anomaly Detection ABSTRACT: Discrete deep targets are a significant challenge for most surface-based geophysical techniques, even when considering high property contrasts. Generally, surface based geophysical methods lose lateral and vertical resolution with depth as a resul...

Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) systems using fiber optic (FO) cables are becoming commonplace in many perimeter security applications. They have the advantage of cost-effectively covering large geographic expanses without temporal or spatial gaps. Recent technology advances in commercial DAS systems have significantly improved system sensitivit...

Everchanging arctic climate conditions continue to negatively impact the habitat of the polar bear. The changes cause them to search for food outside of their traditional hunting grounds and potentially encounter humans in locations where interactions weren’t previously documented. One such occurrence in 2018 found a female polar bear at Summit Sci...

Recent habitat loss for polar bears has caused them to shift their hunting grounds, and as a result, there are more human-polar bear interactions2. For the National Science Foundation’s “Summit Station” in Greenland, a team at CRREL has begun to develop a detection system for polar bears to mitigate human and polar bear encounters. The system makes...

The use of carbonate precipitation as a means of in-situ soil stabilization, or for the purposes of carbon capture, has led to interest in the development of methods for remote monitoring of carbonate mineral formation. Spectral Induced Polarization (SIP) is a geophysical technique (akin to Impedance Spectroscopy) which measures the frequency depen...

Effective and efficient mapping of permafrost subsurface composition at scales relevant to the design and maintenance of horizontal and vertical infrastructure has been a long-standing challenge. Of utmost utility would be the development of standoff measurement techniques that could discern at the meter to submeter spatial scale and up to 10 m int...

High-frequency electromagnetic induction (HFEMI) extends the established EMI frequency range above 100 kHz to perhaps 20 MHz. In this higher frequency range, less-conductive targets display heretofore unseen responses in their inphase and quadrature components. Improvised explosive device constituent parts, such as carbon rods, small pressure plate...

The U.S. Army ERDC provided support to the U.S. Air Force Civil Engineer Center under the FY17 Do3F congressional add for Unmanned Air-craft Systems Sensor Integration. A UAS-based EMI platform for expe-dited runway remediation of UXO is under development. Additional funding through the USACE under PE 62784/T53, Innovative Construc-tion Materials f...

The US military requires stand-off near surface detection methods that can be remotely deployed and provide critical subsurface information for civil and operational maneuvers. Specifically, information regarding the presence and orientation of unexploded ordinance (UXO) and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), as well as soil information is sought...

Standoff electromagnetic (EM) measurements of complex conductivity for engineering soil properties has the potential to revolutionize the way the US Army handles route planning and infrastructure assessment. An unmanned aerial system (UAS) based EM platform for soil interrogation will have wide reaching impact from civil infrastructure inspection t...

Earthen dam failures of high hazard dams are expected to cause downstream human life loss and economic and environment loss. Of the three most prevalent failure modes for earthen dams, seepage (or piping) failures account for approximately 40 percent. All earthen dams seep and it is not uncommon to observe some seepage on the downstream toe, but th...

ERT IMAGING OF SUBSURFACE STRUCTURE OF A SINKHOLE IN GREENE COUNTY, MISSOURI Shishay Kidanu, Missouri S&T; Evgeniy Torgashov, Missouri S&T; Neil Anderson, Missouri S&T Thousands of sinkholes have been identified in the state of Missouri; Greene County, in particular, is one of the counties in the state most known for the occurrence of sinkholes....

The US military is in need of stand-off near surface soil characterization methods that can be remotely deployed and provide critical soil information for operational maneuvers. Specifically, information regarding the dielectric constant, soil strength and moisture content of soils is sought. Remote geophysical interrogation of the subsurface provi...

Recent investigations at a US Army legacy munitions waste site identified potential problems in the acquisition and evaluation of time-domain electromagnetic induction surveying for munitions remediation confirmation in cold regions. As part of remediation efforts, geophysical studies were conducted to characterize the extent of buried metal debris...

Detection of buried munitions and metallic debris are common problems at historic firing ranges and war time sites throughout the world. The currently accepted approaches for munitions detection most commonly involve the use of time-domain electromagnetic induction surveying. Existing standards for this type of investigation dictate survey design p...

Detection of buried unexploded ordinance and improvised explosive devices is a problem that continues to challenge the US military. Detection of tunnels, or the infrastructure in tunnels has also been a persistent and perplexing problem. While commercial off the shelf electromagnetic induction systems, generally operating below 100 kHz, have helped...

The Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL), Alaska Projects Office was contracted to conduct an initial geophysical investigation at four sites in and near the community of Northway, Alaska. The objective of these surveys was to determine if buried metal debris was present and to determine if future investigations at these sites w...

A US Army legacy munitions waste site was identified adjacent to a river near a small arms range in Alaska. As part of remediation efforts, geophysical studies were conducted to characterize the extent of buried metal debris at the site. Time-domain electromagnetic surveys were completed over the site to meet the regulatory guidance for site cleanu...

Within the firing fan on the Fort Wainwright (FWA) Small Arms Complex a former open burn/open detonation (OB/OD) site was discovered in 2013 and identified as the Open Burn/Open Detonation River Site (OB/OD River Site). The site is located near Fort Wainwright (FWA) Operable Unit 5 (OU5) on the northern bank of the Tanana River and comprises an are...

This paper describes a comprehensive modeling approach for infrasonic (sub-audible acoustic) signals, which starts with an accurate representation of the source spectrum and directivity, propagates the signals through the environment, and senses and processes the signals at the receiver. The calculations are implemented within EASEE (Environmental...

Operations associated with nuclear weapons development resulted in subsurface heavy metal and radionuclide contamination at many sites within the former US nuclear weapons development complex. Of these, the Hanford Site, which housed research and plutonium production facilities, faces some of the most complex and challenging subsurface remediation...

We present an array evaluation of standard and non-standard arrays over a hydrogeological target. We develop the arrays by linearly combining data from the pole-pole (or 2-pole) array. The first test shows that reconstructed resistances for the standard Schlumberger and dipole-dipole arrays are equivalent or superior to the measured arrays in terms...

A surface geophysical exploration (SGE) survey using direct current electrical resistivity was conducted within the C Tank Farm in the vicinity of the 200-Series tanks at the Hanford Site near Richland, Washington. This survey was the second successful SGE survey to utilize the Geotection™-180 Resistivity Monitoring System which facilitated a much...

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection has constructed interim surface barriers (ISBs) over portions of the 241-T and 241-TY Tank Farms. The ISBs are designed to divert meteoric water and surface water away from contaminated vadose zone soils within the tank farms. Infiltration of water into subsurface soils with pre-existing co...

For regulatory purposes, the Hanford Site single-shell tank (SST) farms have been grouped into seven waste management areas (A-AX, B-BX-BY, C, S-SX, T, TX-TY, and U) which are subject to the requirements of the Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order (HFFACO) as past-practice units. Closure ofthe Hanford Site SSTs isrequired under HFFA...

ABSTRACTA validation experiment, carried out in a scaled field setting, was attempted for the long electrode electrical resistivity tomography method in order to demonstrate the performance of the technique in imaging a simple buried target. The experiment was an approximately 1/17 scale mock‐up of a region encompassing a buried nuclear waste tank...

The interim surface barrier program at the Hanford site was initiated to reduce subsurface moisture content, and subsequently the migration risk of known vadose zone contaminants associated with cold-war era low level radioactive wastes and volatile organic compounds. The arid climate of southeastern Washington contributes to relatively low backgro...

The objective of the following feasibility study is to determine if geophysical imaging methods could be used for the detection and monitoring of ethanol fuel spills. Two geophysical methods were selected based on their ability to detect contrasts in subsurface electrical properties: electrical resistivity imaging (ERI) and ground penetrating radar...

During fiscal year 2007, two-dimensional resistivity surveys were conducted within the Central Plateau along a total of 54 geophysical profiles in both the 200 East and 200 West areas. Of these, four profiles were collected in the vicinity of 216-C-1, nine profiles acquired near waste sites 216-A-7, 216-A-8 and 216-A-19, ten profiles conducted for...

Ethanol is now widely used in petrochemical-based fuels as a fuel oxygenate, or as the primary ingredient in E85 gasoline. Increased production and use of ethanol resulted from environmental concerns over methyl-tertiary-butyl-ether (MTBE), a toxic water-soluble gasoline additive, and the need for renewable sources of non-petrochemical equivalents....

The research presented herein aims to determine if a spectral induced polarization (SIP) response exists due to nanoparticles in a saturated sand matrix. If a SIP response is realized in such an experimental setting, then it is feasible that SIP may be capable of delineating nanoparticles in the subsurface. The following five nanoparticles were stu...

The increased use of biofuels (e.g. ethanol) as an alternative to, and additive in, petroleum-based fuels likely will result in the same types of accidental releases and exposure currently associated with the transport and storage of petroleum products. Within the last decade a large number of studies have focused on the geophysical detection and m...

A case study is presented for an electrical resistivity geophysical survey, conducted on a gold leach pad of low-grade ore. The electrical resistivity method maps the spatial distribution of electrical resistivity, which is an intrinsic property of material that measures the resistance of electrical current flow through a medium. The property is in...