Estimates for the Effective Permeability of Intact Granite Obtained from the Eastern and Western Flanks of the Canadian Shield

A. P. S. Selvadurai,P. A. Selvadurai,A. Blain-Coallier

doi:10.3390/min10080667

A. P. S. Selvadurai, P. A. Selvadurai + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/min10080667

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Journal: Minerals	Publication Date: Jul 27, 2020
Citations: 7	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: McGill University

Abstract

Granitic rock from the western part of the Canadian Shield is considered as a potential host rock for the siting of a deep geological repository for the storage of heat-emitting high-level nuclear fuel waste. The research program focused on the use of surface permeability measurements conducted at 54 locations on a 300 mm cuboid of granite, obtained from the Lac du Bonnet region in Manitoba, to obtain an estimate for the effective permeability of the cuboid. Companion experiments are conducted on a 280 mm cuboid of granite obtained from Stanstead, Quebec, located in the eastern part of the Canadian Shield. The surface permeabilities for the cuboids of granite are developed from theoretical relationships applicable to experimental situations where steady flow is initiated at a sealed annular surface region with a pressurized central domain. The experimental values for the surface permeability are used with a kriging procedure to estimate the permeability variations within the cuboidal region. The spatial variations of permeability are implemented in computational models of the cuboidal regions to determine the one-dimensional permeabilities in three orthogonal directions. The effective permeability of the granite cuboids is estimated by appeal to the geometric mean. The research provides a non-destructive methodology for estimating the effective permeability of large specimens of rock and the experiments performed give estimates for the effective permeability of the two types of granitic rock obtained from the western and eastern flanks of the Canadian Shield.

Highlights

The cratons found in North America, Fennoscandia, Siberia, Central Africa, Brazil and Australia are extensive, flat, stable interiors of continents that have been relatively undisturbed since the Precambrian era
These results indicate that the flow rates recorded in the permeameter are steady and the record of the cumulative volume vs. time can be used to estimate the flow rate, which in turn is used to estimate the surface permeability of the Stanstead granite cuboid
The Canadian Shield is a potential setting for the construction of a deepsuitability geologicalofrepository (DGR) for nuclear waste disposal

Summary

Introduction

The cratons found in North America, Fennoscandia, Siberia, Central Africa, Brazil and Australia are extensive, flat, stable interiors of continents that have been relatively undisturbed since the Precambrian era. They consist of large areas of exposed crystalline basement rocks called shields. The Canadian Shield consists of granitic rocks and high-grade metamorphic rocks, including gneisses, together with highly deformed and metamorphosed sediments and volcanic rocks, which would imply intense mountain building episodes in the Precambrian era prior to stable conditions. Useful summaries are given in the articles [2,3] and the article by Hoffmann [4] contains an excellent overview of cratons in North America and provides an extensive list of research articles on the topic

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