Assessing the suitable electrical resistivity arrays for characterization of basement aquifers using numerical modeling

Kehinde D Oyeyemi; Ahzegbobor P Aizebeokhai; Mohamed Metwaly; Oluseun Omobulejo; Oluseun A Sanuade; Emmanuel E Okon

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e09427

Assessing the suitable electrical resistivity arrays for characterization of basement aquifers using numerical modeling

Heliyon. 2022 May 13;8(5):e09427. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e09427. eCollection 2022 May.

Authors

Kehinde D Oyeyemi¹, Ahzegbobor P Aizebeokhai¹, Mohamed Metwaly^{2

3}, Oluseun Omobulejo¹, Oluseun A Sanuade⁴, Emmanuel E Okon⁵

Affiliations

¹ Applied Geophysics Unit, Department of Physics, Covenant University, Nigeria.
² Department of Archaeology, College of Tourism and Archaeology, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia.
³ National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (NRIAG), Helwan Cairo, Egypt.
⁴ Boone Pickens School of Geology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, United States.
⁵ Department of Geology, University of Calabar, Nigeria.

Abstract

Numerical modeling analysis was used to assess the suitable electrical resistivity arrays for the characterization of geological structures, including dyke, horst, graben, sub-vertical, and vertical structures. These geological structures usually make up the aquifers interested in the hydrogeological evaluation of crystalline basement terrains. Six electrode configurations, including Wenner alpha (α), Wenner beta (β), Wenner gamma (γ), Schlumberger array, dipole-dipole array, and pole-dipole array, were used to assess the geological structures for groundwater exploration. The synthetic models of the geological structures were generated using RES2DMOD code, and 5% noise was added to all the models. The generated models were inverted using the RES2DINV code. The results show that the most suitable arrays for dyke and graben structures are Wenner alpha, while Wenner beta is the most suitable for the horst structure. The Schlumberger array was the best for both sub-vertical and vertical structures. This study has demonstrated the efficacy of numerical modeling in assessing the best resistivity arrays for 2D electrical resistivity imaging for groundwater exploration prior to geophysical field investigation.

Keywords: Basement aquifers; Electrical resistivity imaging; Groundwater exploration; Hydrogeology; Numerical modeling.