About
49
Publications
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Introduction
I am currently a Research Hydrogeologist at Sandia National Laboratories. My current research focuses on utilizing field data and numerical modeling to study geological processes related to fluid flow within the subsurface.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
January 2016 - September 2019
August 2013 - December 2015
December 2011 - May 2012
Position
- Methods of Investigation of Surface-Water/Groundwater Interactions in a Mining Disturbed Watershed
Description
- Investigation of flow losses in the headwaters of the Schuylkill River to develop of a stream gauging and monitoring program coupled with resistivity surveys that would define areas of flow loss.
Education
January 2016 - September 2019
August 2013 - December 2015
January 2009 - May 2012
Publications
Publications (49)
BGE TECHNOLOGY GmbH (BGE TEC) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) developed and jointly tested a methodology for the safety assessment of engineered barrier systems (EBS) for a high-level waste/spent nuclear fuel (HLW/SNF) repository in salt. Long-term isolation in such a repository is provided by a multi-barrier system including natural and eng...
BGE TECHNOLOGY GmbH (BGE TEC) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) developed and tested jointly a methodology for the safety assessment of engineered barrier systems (EBS) for an HLW/SNF repository in salt. Long-term-isolation in such a repository is provided by a multi-barrier system including natural and engineered barriers. The salt provides t...
Basalt formations are potentially attractive targets for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) on the basis of favorable CO 2-water-rock reactions, which result in permanent CO 2 isolation through mineral trapping. Recent pilot-scale experiments in Iceland and Washington state, USA, provide promising results that indicate rapid carbon mineralizati...
Brine availability in salt has multiple implications for the safety and design of a nuclear waste storage facility. Brine availability includes both the distribution and transport of brine through a damaged zone around boreholes or drifts excavated into the salt. Coupled thermal, hydrological, mechanical, and chemical processes taking place within...
The Spent Fuel and Waste Science and Technology (SFWST) Campaign of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy, Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition (SFWD), has been conducting research and development on generic deep geologic disposal systems (i.e., geologic repositories). This report describes specific activities in the Fiscal Y...
Pumping oilfield wastewater into deep injection wells causes earthquakes by effective stress change and solid elastic stressing. These processes result from fluid pressure changes in the seismogenic basement, so it is generally accepted that pressure diffusion governs spatiotemporal patterns of induced earthquake sequences. However, new evidence su...
In the study of complex physical systems, scientists use simulations to study the effects of different models and parameters. Seeking to understand the influence and relationships among multiple dimensions, they typically run many simulations and vary the initial conditions in what are known as ‘ensembles’. Ensembles are then a number of runs that...
Carbon-capture and sequestration (CCS) in geologic reservoirs is one strategy for reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions from large-scale point source emitters. Recent developments have shown that basalt reservoirs are highly effective for permanent mineral trapping on the basis of CO2-water-rock interactions, which result in the formation of carbona...
Recent field experiments in Iceland and Washington State (USA) show that basalt formations may be favorable targets for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) because CO2 mineralization reactions proceed rapidly. These results imply that there is tremendous opportunity for implementing CCS in large igneous provinces. However, the magnitude of this...
Oilfield wastewater disposal causes fluid pressure transients that induce earthquakes. Here we show that, in addition to pressure transients related to pumping, there are pressure transients caused by density differences between the wastewater and host rock fluids. In northern Oklahoma, this effect caused earthquakes to migrate downward at ~0.5 km...
Experiment 2 of the EGS Collab project is aimed at testing stimulation by hydro-shearing of existing natural fractures, versus Experiment 1, which is focused on hydraulic fracturing a rock mass to enhance permeability. The main criterion for the testbed selection in Experiment 2 is the presence of an interconnected network of fractures, at least 10...
Injecting supercritical CO 2 into the subsurface changes the temperature, pressure, and geochemistry of the storage reservoir. Understanding these perturbations within the reservoir may be used to monitor the CO 2 plume during a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project. Here we analyze results from 1‐D, 2‐D, and 3‐D numerical modeling studies...
To understand the implications of permeability uncertainty in basalt-hosted CCS reservoirs, this study investigates the feasibility of industrial-scale CCS operations within the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG). It is generally accepted that plausible constraints on in situ fracture-controlled permeability distributions are un-knowable at reservo...
The United States Department of Energy, Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) is funding a collaborative investigation of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) processes at the meso-scale. This study, referred to as the EGS Collab project, is a unique opportunity for scientists and engineers to investigate the creation of fracture networks and circulati...
The injection of super-critical CO 2 into the subsurface causes a disturbance in the pressure, temperature, and chemical systems within the target reservoir. How the ambient conditions change in response to a CO 2 injection ultimately affects the transport and fate of the injected CO 2. This study is focused on gaining a better understanding of the...
This study investigates the feasibility of industrial-scale CCS operations within the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG) with an emphasis on understanding the implications of site-scale permeability uncertainty. We develop a Monte Carlo-style numerical modeling experiment in which CO2 sequestration is simulated within 50 stochastically generated an...
Tracer tests are standard methods for characterizing flow paths along connected high-permeability zones in the subsurface. In this study, we propose a fast and simple method to analyze tracer tests from the DOE's EGS Collab project, and feed the characterized flow paths back into thermal breakthrough predictions. In this project, two phases of cont...
During carbon capture and sequestration, capillary forces and buoyancy effects strongly influence CO2 migration and plume geometry. To understand interactions between these processes, we implement a numerical modeling experiment of CO2 injections in a sandstone reservoir to understand how parametric variability reported in the literature affects nu...
The well-known observation that permeability tends to decrease with depth has been invoked to explain and/or model the effects of fluid and heat flow within numerous soci-etally relevant geological processes. However, this study finds that continental large igne-ous provinces may deviate from the classical permeability decay trend. We compile a new...
We conducted numerical simulations of coupled fluid and heat transport in an offshore, buried salt diapir environment to determine the effects of advective heat transport and its relation to the so-called “salt chimney effect.” Model sets were designed to investigate (1) salt geometry, (2) depth-dependent permeability, (3) geologic heterogeneity, a...
This study presents a spatial correlation model of regional scale permeability variability within the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG). The data were compiled from the literature, and include 893 aquifer test results from 598 individual wells. In order to quantify the spatial variation of permeability within the CRBG, three experimental variogram...
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) in geologic reservoirs is one strategy for reducing anthropogenic CO 2 emissions from large-scale point-source emitters. Recent developments at the CarbFix CCS pilot in Iceland have shown that basalt reservoirs are highly effective for permanent mineral trapping on the basis of CO 2-water-rock interactions, wh...
Aquifers within the Pampa del Tamarugal Basin (Atacama Desert, northern Chile) are the sole source of water for the coastal city of Iquique and the economically important mining industry. Despite this, the regional groundwater system remains poorly understood. Although it is widely accepted that aquifer recharge originates as precipitation in the A...
Advective heat transport and the salt chimney effect: A numerical analysis
Northern Chile’s Atacama Desert is one of the driest inhabited regions on the planet. The Pampa del Tamarugal Basin is located within the Atacama Desert and is home to ~300,000 people, yet this region receives little to no rain (<5 mm/yr). However, despite the lack of rain, there is a large source of fresh water in the Pampa del Tamarugal Aquifer (...
