Airborne Geophysics for Characterizing Aquifers with Examples from Antarctica to Nebraska

Water-resource managers traditionally used borehole logs, surface geophysics and wells to gain an understanding of groundwater and its flow paths. This point source data may be scarce or difficult to obtain and often samples aren’t geographically dense enough to make decisions on groundwater management over large areas. The application of airborne electromagnetic surveys (AEM) has increased in recent years because the method can quickly and economically deliver high-quality subsurface data from which comprehensive hydrogeologic frameworks can be developed.

The principles of airborne geophysics will be introduced and case studies will present airborne data from groundwater surveys conducted in Antarctica, the USA and Canada. These studies will cover a variety of objectives and targets including identification of aquifer materials, freshwater/saltwater interactions and water volume estimations. It will be shown how the airborne data can be used to identify productive targets for drill planning as well as how the airborne data can be used to complement existing borehole data to produce geological interpretations.

3D visualizations and a short video will be used to show how geological interpretations are reinforced with benefit of a priori data (boreholes) which in turn leads to informed and economic selection of productive drill targets.