topic Particle Track tool in ArcGIS Spatial Analyst Questions

Particle Track tool

PaolaPeroni — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:24:24 GMT

Hi,
I'm using the particle track tool to model the movement of a fluid through a subsurface system and would be interested in using the particle track tool in Spatial Analyst to do this.

My question is that the tool requires the local velocity field as an input, which is not available as a dataset. Given that the migration of my fluid is conditioned by the 3D geometry of the subsurface system, I was wondering whether I could use the slope of a conditioning geological horizon instead of velocity data as the magnitude (and the aspect for the direction of flow). Any idea on the validity of this approach?

Many thanks in advance
Paola

Re: Particle Track tool

PaolaPeroni — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:33:56 GMT

William,

Thanks for the useful insight (as usual). Maybe is worth for me to explain a bit more the detail of my problem.

Let�??s take a coarse approach (I don�??t need to model this is detail, so I don�??t need a full 3D model).

Assume a confined, water saturated geological unit in which a fluid that is immiscible with water is also present (its density being lower than water�??s). Physics tells me that this fluid would tend to migrate upwards within the geological horizon until a barrier (caprock) is met. Here the fluid will accumulate. I�??m trying to predict (roughly) where the accumulation areas may be. For this I want to consider the geometry of my geological setting (in my case the geometry of the contact between the geological unit and the caprock). I�??d also like to consider the hydro-geo dynamic of the geological setting, though I�??m not sure how yet (I thought about fluid potential, but did not test this yet).

OK, now let�??s concentrate on the geometry of the geological setting only. As I said I�??d like to use the Particle Track tool to identify possible migration paths and accumulation areas. My problem is that I don�??t have a velocity necessarily associated to this (in the end I�??m not even interested in how long will it take for the fluid to reach an accumulation zone) and, as for my previous post, was wondering if I could �??substitute�?� the local velocity with another �??magnitude�?� such as slope values of the caprock/geological unit contact.

I hope this would clarify a bit better.

Many thanks.
Paola

Re: Particle Track tool

PaolaPeroni — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 08:47:06 GMT

William,

thanks for your ideas, which I'm going to explore. A crude approach is OK at this stage of my modelling. There are out there many specialised software packages which do a brilliant job in modelling all this in detail, which is not what I want to do, and certainly I do not want to "replicate" functionality that GIS was not meant for.

Regards
Paola