Issues

We have developed an improved method for measuring the transfer of energy and mass, in the form of water and carbon, to the subsurface critical zone. These transfers are fundamental to earth surface function and evolution.

We present an efficient method for sampling and spatial estimation of soil moisture at the small catchment scale which is based on terrain data and sparse soil moisture measurements.

The directional dependency of hydraulic conductivity of granular materials is investigated through a micromechanical analysis. By taking into account the spatial distribution of pore spaces, the upper and lower bounds for the ratio of hydraulic conductivity corresponding to flow in different directions are derived. The theoretical findings are generally in agreement with laboratory test results.

Monte Carlo suites of macroscopic invasion percolation simulations in two- and three-dimensional domains were compared with small-scale thin-tank experiments of gas injection in homogeneous, initially water-saturated sand. Local gas saturations were measured using light transmission, and spatial moments were compared with those from the simulations.