Measurement of fluid velocity using temperature profiles: Experimental verification

Temperature profiling has been used to predict the rate and direction of groundwater movement. A controlled field experiment was conducted to ascertain the validity of the rate calculations made using this method. The vertical velocity, or leakage, of groundwater between two aquifers was calculated utilizing both hydrologic and temperature measurements in a well drilled into the Paw Paw buried bedrock valley in northern Illinois. The experiment showed that accurate estimates of leakage can be made in stable boreholes where there are no geologic complications. Estimates utilizing temperature and hydrologic methods produced similar results for one of two aquicludes. However, the methods produced dissimilar results for the second aquiclude. It is speculated that the presence of a thin organic silt caused most of the problem; other complicating factors were lithologic variation and a very low hydraulic gradient. Nevertheless, the method appears to have great promise in many geologic environments.