Spatial Variability of Strontium Distribution Coefficients and Their Correlation With Hydraulic Conductivity in the Canadian Forces Base Borden Aquifer

Abstract

Distribution coefficients (Kd), defined as the ratio of the concentration of solute associated with the solids to the concentration in solution, are widely used in the prediction of reactive solute transport. With the advent of stochastic approaches to describe solute transport, there is a need to examine the spatial distribution of Kd, and its correlation with the hydraulic conductivity (K). Distribution coefficients were measured in triplicates for strontium on 1279 subsamples of cores from Canadian Forces Base Borden for which K measurements were available. The Kd values ranged from 4.4 to 29.8 mL/g, with a mean of 9.9 and standard deviation of 2.89 mL/g. The standard error on the triplicate means was 0.95 mL/g or approximately 10% of the mean. The spatial behavior of Kd and K (expressed as In (Kd) and ln (K)) was examined in three directions: horizontally along two orthogonal transects and vertically. The two variables each behaved nearly identically in the two horizontal directions, suggesting horizontal isotropy. Horizontally, ln (Kd) appeared as “white noise” suggesting that the horizontal spacing between cores (1 m) was too large to detect any self‐correlation. The distribution coefficient displayed increasing power spectral density with increasing scale in the vertical direction, while In (K) showed these trends in all directions. Depending on the model used, the, correlation lengths obtained by least squares fits of the power spectra varied from 1 to 7.5 m horizontally and from 10 to 30 cm vertically for ln (K); and from 30 cm to 2 m horizontally and from 30 to 70 cm vertically for ln (Kd). The ln (Kd) values showed a significant but very weak negative overall correlation with ln (K) at the 99.95% confidence level. The cross‐spectral and coherency analysis showed that the sign and degree of correlation between ln (Kd) and ln (K) depended on the scale and direction considered. The correlations in all directions and at all scales were weak, and could not always be declared significantly different than zero at the 95% confidence level.