Non-invasive monitoring of water content and textural changes in clay-rocks using spectral induced polarization: A laboratory investigation

Seven well-characterized clay-rocks have been taken from three test sites to perform spectral induced polarization (SIP) measurements during desiccation of these samples. These test sites include (1) the Tournemire site (IRSN) located in south of France, (2) The Bure test site (ANDRA) located in west of France, and (3) the Super-Sauze earthflow located in south western of France. We dried the samples at ambient temperature followed by heating between 65 °C and 105 °C. The quadrature conductivity, at very low-frequency, was able to discriminate between the loss of free water from the macropores and the loss of water in the micropores associated with textural changes. The calcite and quartz grain size distributions had a significant effect on the low-frequency spectrum. The inversion of our SIP data demonstrated that the generalized Cole–Cole model is an appropriate empirical and practical model for monitoring changes in water content of clay-rocks.