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Allen Shapiro ’76, research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, will speak on “Recent Advances in Characterizing Ground-Water Flow and Chemical Transport in Fractured Rock From Cores to Kilometers” 7 p.m. today in Oechsle Hall.
Shapiro is the Henry Darcy Distinguished Lecturer in Ground Water Science for 2004. Free and open to the public, his talk is conducted by Lafayette’s Division of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Department of Geology and Environmental Geosciences.
Sponsored by the National Ground Water Association, the Darcy lectures foster interest and excellence in ground water science and technology. The series honors Henry Darcy of France, whose scientific discoveries established the physical basis upon which ground water hydrogeology has been studied ever since.
Shapiro graduated from Lafayette with a degree in civil engineering and holds master’s and Ph.D. degrees in civil and geological engineering from Princeton University. His research has focused on characterizing ground-water flow and chemical transport in fractured rock. It has included investigations in various geologic settings, including fractured and dissolution-enhanced limestone, bedded sedimentary formations, and igneous and metamorphic rock.
Shapiro’s lecture discusses fractured rock aquifers, which provide water for domestic use, locations for isolating hazardous and toxic waste, and sites for foundations and infrastructure.
“For these issues, the dimensions over which the characterization of ground water flow and chemical transport needs to be conducted can range from meters to kilometers,” Shapiro says. “Critical to the evaluation of these problems is how formation properties may vary over increasingly larger dimensions. Theoretical methods of scaling formation properties may not be successful in their application to fractured rock, because of the structural complexity and extreme variability in the hydraulic properties of bedrock environments.
“The influence of the physical dimensions of the problem on the magnitude of formation properties is viewed through the synthesis of laboratory studies, controlled field-scale experiments, and the interpretation of ambient ground water flow and the spatial distribution of dissolved constituents, gases and isotopes using ground water flow and chemical-transport modeling,” Shapiro says.
Shapiro has authored papers on equipment design and field techniques, the interpretation of hydraulic and geochemical data, and theories of ground-water flow and chemical transport. His research has application to issues of societal importance, including water supply, ground-water contamination and restoration, waste isolation, and ground-water flow in the vicinity of engineered structures.