ANOMALOUS TRANSPORT IN RANDOM FRACTURE NETWORKS

We show that dominant aspects of contaminant (particle) transport in r andom fracture networks-non-Gaussian propagation-result from subtle fe atures of the steady flow-field distribution through the network. This is an outcome of a new theory, based on a continuous time random walk formalism, structured to retain the key space-time correlations of co ntaminants as they are advected across each fracture segment. Particle tracking simulations on these networks exhibit the same non-Gaussian profiles, demonstrating quantitative agreement with the theory.