Identification of dominant gas transport frequencies during barometric pumping of fractured rock

Dylan R Harp; John P Ortiz; Philip H Stauffer

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-46023-z

Identification of dominant gas transport frequencies during barometric pumping of fractured rock

Sci Rep. 2019 Jul 2;9(1):9537. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-46023-z.

Authors

Dylan R Harp¹, John P Ortiz², Philip H Stauffer²

Affiliations

¹ Computational Earth Science, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, 87544, USA. dharp@lanl.gov.
² Computational Earth Science, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, 87544, USA.

Abstract

We demonstrate that although barometric pressures are complicated signals comprised of numerous frequencies, it is a subset of these frequencies that drive the overwhelming majority of gas transport in fractured rock. Using an inverse numerical analysis, we demonstrate that a single barometric component with seasonally modulated amplitude approximates gas transport due to a measured barometric signal. If past barometric tendencies are expected to continue at a location, the identification of this frequency can facilitate accurate long term predictions of barometrically induced gas transport negating the need to consider stochastic realizations of future barometric variations. Additionally, we perform an analytical analysis that indicates that there is a set of barometric frequencies, consistent with the inverse numerical analysis, with high production efficiency. Based on the corroborating inverse numerical and analytical analyses, we conclude that there is a set of dominant gas transport frequencies in barometric records.