Subsurface Imaging of an Abandoned Solid Waste Landfill Site in Norman, Oklahoma

Abstract

Leachate plume emanating from an old unlined municipal landfill site near the city of Norman, Oklahoma, is discharging into the underlying alluvial aquifer. Subsurface imaging techniques, electrical resistivity tomography and electrical conductivity (EC) logging, were used on the site to detect and map the position of the leachate plume. Anomalous EC zones, delineated with the two methods, correlated with the occurrence of the plume detected by water chemistry analyses from multilevel monitoring wells. Specific conductance, a potential indicator of leachate contamination, ranged from 1861 to 7710 μS/cm in contaminated zones and from 465 to 2180 μS/cm in uncontaminated ground water. Results are in agreement with those from earlier studies that the leachate plume emerges from the landfill along preferential pathways. Additionally, there are indications that the leading edge of the plume has migrated, at least, 200 m away from the landfill in the direction of ground water flow.

Geophysical-geochemical investigation of fire-prone landfills

“…Application of electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) is very popular for landfill sites characterization since electrical resistivity of waste in landfill disposal varies considerably with time during waste decomposition and leachate generation, and since it allows continuous site study (e.g., Bernstone et al 2000;Aristodemou and Thomas-Betts 2000;Depountis et al 2005;Zume et al 2006;Mondelli et al 2007;Soupios et al 2006Soupios et al , 2007Frid et al 2008, Georgaki et al 2008. For example Soupios et al 2006Soupios et al , 2007 ERT as a part of integrated geophysical method for landfill characterization, while Georgaki et al 2008 used ERT together with methane and carbon dioxide emission measurements in order to improve the estimation of landfill gas emission.…”

Electrical resistivity tomography applied to geologic, hydrogeologic, and engineering investigations at a former waste-disposal site

“…With the advent of multi-channel instruments the use of hybrid Wenner array types is becoming more common (e.g. de la Vega, 2003; Leucci et al, 2004;Zume et al, 2006) in order to harness the good signal strength of the Wenner array and the superior lateral resolution of other array types such as the dipole-dipole, Schlumberger and gradient arrays (Dahlin and Zhou, 2004). In this case a combination of Wenner and…”

Determination of Maximum Horizontal Distance (XMHD) Travelled by Landfill Leachate from Lapite Dumpsite in Ibadan, Southwestern Nigeria

“…However, setting up of boreholes apart from being costly, provides a very limited and point source type of information, disregarding the areal extent of the contamination at the sites [10], so Electrical Resistivity Method (ERM) is used in this study. The presence of anions and cations in landfill leachate make it electrically more conductive than the surrounding rocks and soil thus, enabling a non -invasive geophysical method especially Electrical Resistivity Method (ERM) to be used.…”