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CHARACTERIZING THE DIFFUSIVE TRANSPORT OF STABLE WATER ISOTOPES IN UNSATURATED SOILS

Session: Mining Geotechnique III / Géotechnique minière III

Matthew Buchynski, Department of Civil and Geological Engineering,University of Saskatchewan (Canada)
Lee Barbour, Department of Civil and Geological Engineering,University of Saskatchewan (Canada)
Jim Hendry, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Saskatchewan (Canada)

Two phase transport of the stable isotopes of water has been presented by many authors, but these studies tend to not include a detailed investigation on the volumetric water content dependencies of two phase diffusive transport. Here, a common model for two phase diffusive transport, synthesized from isotope and gas diffusion literature, is combined with tortuosity models for aqueous and vapour transport. The goal of this study is to find tortuosity models that provide the best fit to observed diffusion data collected from unsaturated double half-cell diffusion tests.