Nino Menzel

Nino Menzel's profile picture
M.Sc.
Nino Menzel
PhD researcher
+49 241 / 80 98273
Postal address:
M.Sc. Nino Menzel
Geophysical Imaging and Monitoring
RWTH Aachen University
Wüllnerstr. 2 (Bergbaugebäude)
Room: 505d
52062 Aachen

Research interests

My research focuses on the area of geophysical monitoring and includes the optimization of experimental design as part of the survey planning, but also the practical application of geophysical methods in the field. Current and future activities are:

  • Implementation of synthetic reference models for the possible host rocks of a nuclear waste repository in Germany (rock salt, claystone, crystalline rock)
  • Optimized Experimental Design (OED) techniques for monitoring of radionuclide transport
  • Adaption of OED to applications in geophysical and petrophysical joint inversion
  • Application of Optimized Experimental Design in the field – comparison of conventional and optimized surveys

Education
2019 – 2022 Applied geosciences (M.Sc.) at RWTH Aachen University focussing on geophysics, hydrogeology and engineering geology.
2015 – 2018 Geowissenschaften (B.Sc.) at the University of Cologne focussing on geophysics, sedimentology and palaeontology.

Professional experience
since Oct. 2022 Doctoral researcher at the department of Geophysical Imaging and Monitoring, RWTH Aachen University.
May 2020 – Aug. 2022 Undergraduate assistant at Altenbockum und Partner, Geologen

Conference contributions

  • Prospektion von Verwerfungen auf der südlichen Erftscholle mittels ERT und SRT

    2023 | Menzel, N., Klitzsch, N., Altenbockum, M., Müller, L., Wagner, F. M.

    83. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Geophysikalischen Gesellschaft, 5.-9. März, Bremen

    Conference website
    Note: This conference contribution resulted from Nino's master thesis project and received the best poster award.

    Abstract

    Komplexe tektonische Verhältnisse der südlichen Erftscholle beeinträchtigen insbesondere auf kleinräumigen Skalen die natürlichen geologischen und hydrologischen Verhältnisse. Das präsentierte Gebiet nahe Euskirchen wird von mehreren NW-SE-gerichteten Verwerfungen durchzogen, deren Lage sowie Einfluss auf die vorherrschenden Bedingungen bereits in vergangenen Studien ermittelt wurde. Da sich diese Untersuchungen jedoch ausschließlich auf räumlich punktuelle Datenquellen stützen, enthalten die Ergebnisse grosse Unsicherheiten. Die in dieser Studie beschriebenen geophysikalischen Messungen sollen dabei helfen, die angenommenen Störungsverläufe im Arbeitsgebiet zu evaluieren und gegebenenfalls zu korrigieren. Seismische Refraktionstomografie (SRT) und elektrische Widerstandstomografie (ERT) wurden entlang von Messprofilen möglichst orthogonal zu den vermuteten Störungslagen durchgeführt. Ein Grossteil der Datenverarbeitung sowie die Inversionen wurden mittels der frei verfügbaren Software pyGIMLi (Rücker et al., 2017) durchgeführt. Zusätzlich zu den individuellen Inversionen der SRT- und ERT-Datensätze wurde der Structurally-Coupled Cooperative Inversion (SCCI) Algorithmus (Skibbe et al., 2018) verwendet, um die seismischen und geoelektrischen Daten gemeinsam zu invertieren. Diese Studie zeigt die Vorteile der individuellen und kombinierten Anwendung mehrerer geophysikalischer Methoden im Kontext oberflächennaher Untersuchungen, insbesondere hinsichtlich der Detektion kleinräumiger tektonischer Strukturen. Die Lage der Verwerfungen konnte im gesamten Arbeitsgebiet mittels geophysikalischer Tomografien identifiziert werden, sofern der vertikale Versatz an den Störungen gross genug ist, um von den Methoden dargestellt zu werden. Aufgrund der guten Auflösung der Einzelinversionen greift der SCCI-Algorithmus lediglich an den bereits erkennbaren lithologischen und hydrologischen Modellgrenzen und stellt diese verdeutlicht dar. Durch wiederholte Anpassung der Regularisierung nach jeder Iteration ermöglicht diese Methode den Austausch struktureller Informationen zwischen den individuellen geophysikalischen Datensätzen während der Inversion.

    Cite as

    Menzel, N. and Klitzsch, N. and Altenbockum, M. and Müller, L. and Wagner, F. M. (2023): Prospektion von Verwerfungen auf der südlichen Erftscholle mittels ERT und SRT. 83. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Geophysikalischen Gesellschaft, 5.-9. März, Bremen.

  • Prospection of faults in the Southern Erftscholle with Refraction Seismics and Electrical Resistivity Tomography

    2023 | Menzel, N., Klitzsch, N., Altenbockum, M., Müller, L., Wagner, F. M.

    EGU General Assembly, Vienna, 23–28 April 2023

    Conference website
    Note: This conference contribution resulted from Ninos master thesis project.

    Abstract

    As part of the Lower Rhein Embayment (LRE), the Southern Erft block is characterized by a complex tectonic setting that may influence hydrological and geological conditions on a local as well as regional level. The area presented in this study is located near Euskirchen in the south of North Rhine-Westphalia and traversed by several NW-SE-oriented fault structures. Past studies based on the lithological description of borehole cores and hydrological measurements stated that the present faults affect the local groundwater conditions throughout the targeted area. However, since the tectonic structures were located based on a sparse foundation of geological borehole data, the results include considerable uncertainties. Therefore, it was decided to re-evaluate and refine the assumed fault locations by conducting geophysical measurements. Seismic Refraction Tomography (SRT) as well as Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) was performed along seven measurement profiles with a length of up to 1.1 km. To allow a sufficient degree of model resolution, the electrode spacing was set to 5 m and halved for areas proximate to assumed fault locations. The geophone spacing was set to 2.5 m for all conducted seismic surveys. A large portion of data processing and inversion was performed with the open-source software package pyGIMLi (Rücker et al., 2017). In addition to compiling individual resistivity and velocity models for all deduced measurements, both ERT and SRT datasets were jointly inverted using the Structurally Coupled Cooperative Inversion (SCCI). This algorithm strengthens structural similarities between velocity and resistivity by adapting the individual regularizations after each model iteration. This study emphasizes the benefit of multi-method geophysics to detect small-scale tectonic features. The surveys allowed to identify the fault locations throughout the area of interest, provided that the vertical displacements are large enough to be detected by the measurements. Previously assumed locations of the tectonic structures diverge from the new evidence based on ERT and SRT surveys. Especially in the western and eastern parts of the research area, differences between the survey results and formerly assumed locations are in the order of 100 m. Seismic and geoelectric measurements further indicate a fault structure in the southern part of the area, which remained undetected by past studies. The joint inversion provides minor improvements of the geophysical models, as most of the individually inverted datasets already provide results of good quality and resolution. Therefore, the effect of the SCCI algorithm is limited to underlining lithological and hydrological boundaries that are already present in the individually inverted ERT- and SRT-models.

    Cite as

    Menzel, N. and Klitzsch, N. and Altenbockum, M. and Müller, L. and Wagner, F. M. (2023): Prospection of faults in the Southern Erftscholle with Refraction Seismics and Electrical Resistivity Tomography. EGU General Assembly, Vienna, 23–28 April 2023.
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