DIAS post doctoral researcher Dr Haleh Karbala Ali was awarded “Best Oral Presentation” at the 2020 Society of Exploration Geophysicists Workshop on Underground Water and Karst Imaging which was held virtually August 28th. The extended abstract will be soon published in SEG digital library.

Her talk, “Locating Subterranean water flow in Irish Karst”, discussed her recent findings from her current research on locating flowing conduits based on a preliminary field experiment on Karst. This work under the supervision of prof. Chris Bean and in collaboration with Irish Centre for Research in Applied Geosciences (iCRAG) focusses on developing new methods for locating and real time monitoring of flowing conduits in Karst.

Karst is a landscape developed when the underlying rock is soluble such as limestone. Near half of Ireland is underlain by limestone which has been karstified in most regions especially west of the country. Karst is important as a source of drinking water, a potential geohazard in geotechnical and construction projects and in terms of groundwater flooding. Current geophysical methods can image the structure of Karst but cannot state whether the conduits are flowing or not. In this project, Haleh tries to locate and track the flowing conduits by passively listening to the tiny ground vibrations induced by the water-flow in Karst conduits.

Analysis of the seismic data in the pilot study on Polltoophill-Polldeelin cave in Castletown, near Gort have yielded promising results and the team is looking forward to have deeper understanding of this complex water system after the main seismic deployment in early October.

If you are interested in learning more, Haleh will be discussing groundwater as a geohazard in an open talk on Culture Night. Tickets available via Eventbrite.