• Energy Research
• 2021-2025close

Numerical modeling was performed to analyze the impacts of potential multiphase conditions on long-term subsurface pressure evolution in subsurface systems. An example site on the Bruce Peninsula in Southern Ontario, Canada was selected due to the large amount of available, high-quality data showing significantly underpressured water and the possible presence of gas phase methane. The system was represented by a 1-D model in which multiphase flow and hydromechanical coupling during the last glacial loading and unloading cycle were simulated. Single-phase flow simulations were performed with the USGS single-phase flow simulator SUTRA, and then both single- and multiphase simulations were performed with the multiphase simulator iTOUGH2-EOS7C from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. This model archive data release contains all the input and output files for the simulations and is intended to accompany an article in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. Descriptions of the data in each subdirectory are given to facilitate understanding of this model archive. File descriptions are provided for select files to provide additional information for understanding this model archive. Support is provided for correcting errors in the data release and clarification of the modeling conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. Users are encouraged to review the complete journal article to understand the purpose, documentation report construction, and limitations of this model.

To better understand the possible risks posed to shallow groundwater resources by geologic carbon sequestration (GCS), a multi-scale numerical modeling approach was invoked using the TOUGHREACT code from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The code solves coupled equations representing conservation of mass and energy on a finite difference grid to simulate multiphase, multicomponent, non-isothermal heat and mass transport in porous media. Two different two-dimensional cross-section modeling domains were constructed to improve understanding of groundwater flow and contaminant transport processes at a field site in soutwestern Utah. The site represents a natural analogue for leakage from a GCS site because water with elevated concentrations of salt and CO2 are migrating upward into a shallow aquifer system. The first modeling domain was designed to improve understanding of long-term hydrological leakage and conservative transport processes at the regional scale, while the second was designed to investigate site-scale reactive transport processes that could occur if the leaking fluids, or those with higher carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, were to interact with a potential source of contamination along their flow path toward the ground surface. Lead (Pb+2) was used as an example heavy metal contaminant and was incorporated into a region of iron oxide representing concretion zones that are common in the geographic area. Results indicate that the initial state of potential heavy metal contaminant (i.e., sorbed onto the surface of the iron oxide or in an oxide mineral assemblage as PbO, litharge), exerts strong control on the amount of contamination that may occur, and that precipitation readily sequesters mobilized Pb+2. This USGS data release contains all of the input and output files for the simulations described in the associated journal article. Descriptions of the data in each subdirectory are given to facilitate understanding of this model archive. File descriptions are provided for select files to provide additional information that may be of use for understanding this model archive. Support is provided for correcting errors in the data release and clarification of the modeling conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. Users are encouraged to review the complete journal article (See 'Related External Resources' section below) to understand the purpose, report construction, and limitations of this model.

This data release serves as a model archive associated with an upcoming journal article. It contains all the input and output files from, as well as explanatory information about, numerical simulations that were conducted as part of a study of a site in Kemper County, Mississippi where deep geologic injection of CO2 has been proposed. The simulations represent groundwater flow within a portion of the deepest potential underground source of drinking water (USDW) at the site; the Eutaw aquifer. Simulations tested various hypothetical leakage rates from one of the two proposed CO2 injection wells, and analyzed detection of the dissolved CO2 plume at the other wells at the site. Simulations also tested the effect of hydrological plume management by water extraction from one of the wells.