Identification of fracture zones by a travel time-based diffusivity approach

Recently the irnportance of understanding fractured aquifers is increasing particular with the relevance to the question of water resources development, groundwater contamination and the search of suitable nuclear waste deposits. For the analysis of engineering, geotechnical and hydrogeological questions is the knowledge about the spatial position of fractures of particular irnportance. Conventional aquifer investigation methods like pumping or slug tests lead to integral information averaged over a large volume. This kind of information is insufficient to develop groundwater models requiring detailed information about the spatial distribution of fractures. To circumvent this problem new investigation methods have to be developed.