Performance Monitoring, Site Characterization

• Chlorinated Solvents
• Trichloroethene (TCE)

USGS scientists lowers a borehole radar antenna into a well that was used for vegetable oil injection (Click on photo for larger version)

At the U.S. Navy Naval Industrial Reserve Ordinance Plant (NIROP) site in Fridley, Minnesota, areas contaminated by volatile organic compounds are being injected with vegetable oil as part of ongoing remediation efforts. USGS scientists, as part of the monitoring efforts, conducted geophysical surveys to attempt to monitor the location of the oil. Geophysical logs were collected before, during, and after injection of the vegetable oil. The vegetable oil was injected as a biostimulant to provide a substrate that will activate the natural microbial community. As the oil is consumed, the system is driven anaerobic, at which time the VOCs are metabolized by microorganisms.

The scientists also conducted research on the addition of tracers to the vegetable oil in order to alter the electrical and magnetic properties of the oil to make the oil more detectable for monitoring methods. Three separate injections were monitored: one of pure vegetable oil, one of vegetable oil mixed with ferrofluids, and one of vegetable oil mixed with colloidal iron powder. Borehole radar tomography and surface-to-borehole radar logs were collected in order to determine whether vegetable oil alone or one of the tracers allowed for the clearest imaging of the location and extent of the injected oil. In addition, a suite of standard borehole logs, including electromagnetic induction, magnetic susceptibility, neutron porosity, and gamma, were collected to aid in the interpretation of the radar logs.

• USGS Develops Geophysical Methods to Improve Remediation Monitoring and Site Characterization
• Geophysical Monitoring of a Biostimulation Pilot Study to Remediate Contaminated Ground Water, Fridley, Minnesota

• Lane, J.W., Jr., Day-Lewis, F.D., Johnson, C.D., Joesten, P.K., and Kochiss, C.S., 2007, Borehole geophysical monitoring of amendment emplacement and geochemistry changes during vegetable oil biostimulation, Anoka County Riverfront Park, Fridley, Minnesota: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2006-5199, 54 p.
• Lane, J.W., Jr., Day-Lewis, F.D., and Casey, C.C., 2006, Geophysical monitoring of a field-scale biostimulation pilot project: Ground Water, v. 44, no. 3, p. 430-443.
• Lane, J.W., Jr., Day-Lewis, F.D., and Casey, C.C., in press, Geophysical monitoring of field-scale vegetable oil injections for biostimulation: Ground Water.
• Lane, J.W., Jr., 2005, Geophysical monitoring of vegetable oil emulsion biostimulation using cross-hole radar methods: Columbia University, unpublished PhD dissertation, 175 p.
• Lane, J.W., Jr, Day-Lewis, F.D., Versteeg, R.J., and Casey, C.C., 2004, Object-based inversion of crosswell radar tomography data to monitor vegetable oil injection experiments: Journal of Environmental and Engineering Geophysics, v. 9, no. 2, p. 63-77.
• Lane, J.W., Jr, Day-Lewis, F.D., Versteeg, R.J., and Casey, C.C., 2003, Object-based inversion of crosswell radar tomography data to monitor vegetable oil injection experiments, in Proceedings of the Symposium on the Application of Geophysics to Engineering and Environmental Problems (SAGEEP), San Antonio, Texas, Proceedings, April 6-10, 2003: Environmental and Engineering Geophysics Society, CD-ROM, 27 p.
• Witten, A., and Lane, J.W., 2003, Offset vertical radar profiling: The Leading Edge (newsletter by The Society of Exploration Geophysicists), v. 22, no. 11, p. 1070-1076.

Geophysical Methods Research

• Branch of Geophysics Research with the Toxic Substances Hydrology Program
• The Application of Geophysical Logging to Hydrogeological Investigations
• Borehole-Geophysical Monitoring of Steam-Injection Remediation Technology
• Borehole-Geophysical Monitoring of a Blast-Fracture Extraction Trench
• Borehole-Geophysical Monitoring of a Contaminated Fractured Rock Aquifer