Hydrologic Characteristics and Response of Fractured Till and Clay Confining a Shallow Aquifer

Abstract

Fractures in glacial till and glaciolacustrine clay were observed in excavations up to 20 ft (6.1 m) in depth and in drill cores at the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment (WNRE) in southeastern Manitoba. The fractures are characteristically coated with carbonate and oxide precipitates, which indicate groundwater movement through the fractures. The fractures impart an effective bulk hydraulic conductivity to the clay–loam till and lacustrine clay, as evidenced by tritium tracer experiments and piezometer responses in the till and clay to pumping of an underlying sandy aquifer.The intergranular hydraulic conductivity of clay–loam till and glaciolacustrine clay in the Interior Plains, as determined from laboratory consolidation test data, is in the range of 2 × 10−10 to 9 × 10−11 ft s−1 (6 × 10−9 to 2.7 × 10−9 cm s−1). The bulk hydraulic conductivity of the fractured clay–loam till at WNRE, as determined from finite-element mathematical modeling, is about 6 × 10−9 ft s−1 (1.8 × 10−7 cm s−1). The model value represents the effective hydraulic conductivity imparted to the till by the fractures.Seven pumping tests, ranging in duration from 8.75 to 120 h were conducted on the sandy aquifer and drawdown data in the aquifer were analyzed to obtain the hydraulic conductivity and storativity of the aquifers.A 32 day pumping test on the aquifer showed that many of the piezometers in the till and clay respond quickly and strongly to the aquifer drawdown, while others show no noticeable response. The responding piezometers intersect open fractures whereas the others do not. Analysis of the piezometer drawdowns during the long-term pumping test using the Neuman and Witherspoon ‘ratio’ method indicates that the rapid piezometer drawdowns in the confining layers can be accounted for by assigning specific storativity values in the range of 1 × 10−5 to 5 × 10−6 ft−1 (3 × 10−5 to 1.5 × 10−5 m−1) to the clay–loam till and lacustrine clay. These values are typical of fractured rock. If intergranular specific storage values are used, the calculated piezometer drawdowns are very small or negligible.