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Modeling Subsurface Petroleum Hydrocarbon Transport

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If the sampling network is confined to a small area (e.g., a service station property), then the true extent of the plume can be missed. This situation could occur because of infrastructure limitations on sampling locations. As shown here the plume extends in a direction that is not covered by any monitoring point.

Sampling only on a small piece of property may miss contamination off-site


Raises two red flags icon Sampling at this site shows that the benzene, xylene and MTBE plumes are all the same length. If this is the case it would go against our conceptualization -- that it is possible for the contaminant plumes to separate from each other.


The dashed lines show that the plumes might actually extend beyond the end of the monitoring network and be undetected. This happens for this site because the monitoring network didn't adequately determine the toe of the plume.

source Color of the contaminant source.
xylenes Color of the xylenes plume.
benzene Color of the benzene plume.
MTBE Color of the MTBE plume.
Sample Location Symbol for sample location.
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