Electrical Resistivity Surveys to Delineate Hydrocarbon-Contaminated Zones in Military Units in Sourth Korea

Oil spills have occurred from storage facilities of military units in South Korea, which have been in use for more than 30 years. Among several units, the target unit of this study is in a small city that locates at about 100 km northeast of Seoul, South Korea. Only limited number of soil samplings have been made, and analyzed to locate highly contaminated zones within the area, which are mostly contaminated by light non-aqueous phase liquids (LNAPLs). Based the location of highly contaminated zones, electrical resistivity surveys along three survey lines are designed to further delineate the contaminated zones. Electrical-resistivity cross sections along each survey line are recovered through 2D inversion and compared with soil logging data. Each cross section showed high eelctrical resistivity values for the LNAPL contaminated region to confirm that the results of electrical surveys were in good agreement with those from the analysis on soil logging data. For more precise interpretation of electircal resistivity survey data, we further make inversion with considering the soil logging data including other available information on the area.