A Ground Penetrating Radar and Electrical Resistivity Tomography Prospection for Detecting Sterile Bodies in the Phosphatic Bearing of Sidi Chennane (Morocco)

Abstract

In Sidi Chennane deposits (Morocco), the phosphatic series is composed of regular interbedded phosphatic and marly limestone layers. Exploitation of the phosphate in these deposits collides frequently with problems bound to the existence, in this series, of sterile bodies qualified as derangements. They cause two kinds of problems: 1) as they are hard, compact and masked by a Quaternary cover, they disturb the exploitation in some yards and give bad reserve calculation; 2) even the use of wells and mechanical boreholes did not evidence their delimitation. Our study shows that these bodies can be detected and delimited using ground penetrating radar and electrical resistivity tomography methods. It is based on the acquisition and the interpretation of series tests using these methods carried out above visible sterile bodies in a trench of exploitation in order to have geologically valid information. The article concerns to the analysis of the results and of the proceeding for a possible large geophysics survey.

Current uses of ground penetrating radar in groundwater-dependent ecosystems research

“…These formations have been scarcely studied by GPR. The only case included in this GE3b class used common offset (El Assel et al, 2011) to deduce a maximum prospecting depth of 25 m ( Fig. 7a; Table 4; …”

Geophysical investigation of underground water content zones using electrical resistivity tomography and ground penetrating radar: A case study in Hesarak-Karaj, Iran

“…Of particular usage of GPR is for geologic characterization of the subsurface materials as well as for mapping of nongeologic objects. The technique is successfully found to be applicable in stratigraphic studies of sedimentary formation (Bristow and Jol, 2003), outlining the foundation of building and other engineering structures (Abbas et al, 2009), archeological investigation (Oveisy Moakhar, 2008Negri et al, 2008), mineral exploration (Gómez-Ortiz et al, 2007;El Assel et al, 2011;Francke, 2012), location of water table, and characterization of subsurface contamination (de Menezes Travassos and de Tarso Luiz Menezes, 2004;Hamzah et al, 2009;Win et al, 2011), geomorphic studies and surface subsidence (Poole et al, 2002;Gómez-Ortiz and Martín-Crespo, 2012), and as well pipe and underground objects inspection (Mohammadi Vizheh and Kamkar Rouhani, 2013).…”

New Insights from Geophysical, Hydrogeological and Borehole Data into the Deep Structure of the Louta Phosphatic Deposit (Gantour Basin, Morocco): Mining Implications

“…The Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) method is a non-destructive tool for nearsurface investigation [20,21]. Indeed, this technique is increasingly used for both characterizing subsurface geological structures [22][23][24][25][26][27] and hydrogeological investigations [28][29][30][31][32][33]. The growing interest in the ERT method is due to the development of multi-electrode measurement devices that have facilitated field operations and new automated data acquisition and inversion algorithms.…”