How are Shallow Boreholes Handled in Stratigraphy Models?

When creating a stratigraphic model, ideally all the boreholes being used for the interpolation would penetrate through all the modeled formations. Unfortunately, the ideal is only an ideal and not frequently realized. It is more typical for boreholes to be of multiple depths, with some proportion not being deep enough to penetrate through all of the modeled formations. To address this type of situation, EnviroInsite must make some assumptions about the presence, or lack thereof, of formations that lie at depths greater than individual boreholes.

The simplest solution is to generate the model for each formation based on boreholes that penetrate through the formations, however, the modeled stratigraphy of different formations would be drawn from an inconsistent number of boreholes. The result would be units that cross or overlap indiscriminately.

Instead, when EnviroInsite encounters boreholes that do not penetrate through a formation, the program interpolates the contact elevation at that location based on the contact elevation of the neighboring boreholes. The result is an estimate of the contact elevations based on data in boreholes around it. EnviroInsite uses the estimated contact elevations as well as the original "real" data to create the stratigraphic model.