English
 
Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse
  1. View item / 
  2. Item Summary

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT
 
 
DownloadE-Mail
  Local TagsRelease HistoryDetailsSummary

Released
Conference Paper

Characterizing offshore freshened groundwater along the Maltese Islands through geophysical and geochemical data integration

Authors

Faghih,  Zahra
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Haroon,  Amir
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Jegen,  Marion
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Berndt,  Christian
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Weymer,  Bradley A.
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Reeck,  Konstantin
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Kühn,  Michel
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Müller,  Thomas
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Schmidt,  Mark
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Hensen,  Christian
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Schwalenberg,  Katrin
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

External Ressource
No external resources are shared
Fulltext (public)
There are no public fulltexts stored in GFZpublic
Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Faghih, Z., Haroon, A., Jegen, M., Berndt, C., Weymer, B. A., Reeck, K., Kühn, M., Müller, T., Schmidt, M., Hensen, C., Schwalenberg, K. (2023): Characterizing offshore freshened groundwater along the Maltese Islands through geophysical and geochemical data integration, XXVIII General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) (Berlin 2023).
https://doi.org/10.57757/IUGG23-4380


Cite as: https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5021811
Abstract
The rising demand for potable water in densely populated coastal regions has recently promoted growing research interest in detecting offshore freshened groundwater (OFG) worldwide. Recent geophysical studies along the continental margins offshore Israel, New Zealand, Malta, and the United States of America provide some examples of integrating geophysical and borehole data to constrain the spatial extent of OFGs and estimate their pore-water salinity. However, occurrences of OFGs and the interaction between terrestrial, carbonate-hosted groundwater systems with seawater are understudied in many coastal regions by complicated seafloor morphology. In this study, we investigate whether OFG can exist offshore a semi-arid carbonate coastline along the Maltese Islands and explore the possibility of sustainably exploiting these reservoirs as an unconventional source of potable water to relieve freshwater scarcity. We present an integration of 2-D resistivity models derived from marine controlled source electromagnetic (CSEM) measurements with 2-D and 3-D seismic data, core samples, borehole data, and geochemical measurements. Electrical resistivity models identify localized resistive anomalies (> 10 ohm-m) offshore the northeastern coast of Gozo (the second-largest island in the Maltese archipelago). Furthermore, a resistive body is observed at ~ 300 m below sea level close to the coast of Gozo which extends northeastwards and disappears at ~ 8 km offshore. If the anomalous resistive body is associated with pore-water salinity variations or, alternatively, caused by lithological changes, will be discussed through an integrative geological model developed along each profile.