INVESTIGATING AQUIFER HETEROGENEITY: A CASE STUDY OF CEER, SUSQUEHANNA UNIVERSITY, THROUGH THE INTEGRATION OF ERT, SRT, AND DRILLING LOGS

The understanding of aquifer hydrogeological heterogeneities facilitates the crucial understanding of their role in governing groundwater flows and how solute transport disperses. Geophysics, as a non-invasive tool, has become integral to hydrogeological investigations for characterizing aquifer heterogeneities. In this study, two geophysical methods consisting of Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) and Seismic Refraction Tomography (SRT) were used in conjunction with three drilling logs to investigate the heterogeneity of an unconfined aquifer located at the Center for Environmental Education and Research (CEER) at Susquehanna University. The two geophysical techniques comprise eleven ERT profiles and eleven SRT profiles. ERT profiles clearly showed varying resistivity values within the aquifer material indicating the presence of groundwater preferential flow areas in the middle of the surveyed site, while SRT revealed four distinct geological formations between the ground surface and the bedrock. The results from ERT align well with the corresponding soil and silt loam layers identified in SRT data. Drilling logs confirmed this alignment. The integration of both geophysical techniques with drilling logs provided a more accurate representation of the aquifer heterogeneity.