Researchers from the Kansas Geological Survey continue to receive federal money to study ways to store carbon dioxide thousands of feet below the earth’s surface.

The KGS was recently awarded a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to test a tool that will allow researchers to map the landscape beneath the earth’s surface, drill into the earth to test how accurate that tool is and then use the data from the map to build models to determine if storing carbon dioxide is feasible.

The project follows a $5 million federal grant the KGS received a year ago to evaluate if carbon dioxide could be stored in Kansas.

Across the world, scientists are studying ways to store industrial-produced carbon dioxide underground as a way to curb greenhouse gases.

Researchers in Kansas are considering a deep saline aquifer in south-central and southwestern Kansas called the Arbuckle.

A porous rock formation more than 3,500 feet below the earth’s surface and 1,000 feet thick, the Arbuckle sits below layers of rock. On top of that rock is the High Plains aquifer, which provides much of the region’s fresh water.

The Arbuckle’s unusable water makes it a suitable candidate for carbon dioxide sequestration (the scientific term for injecting carbon dioxide into the earth’s subsurface).

The problem facing researchers is what to make of the landscape of ancient caverns and sinkholes known as the paleokarst that sits on top of the Arbuckle. That’s where the $1.5 million grant comes into play.

From the surface, a measurement called volumetric curvature will gather seismic data to map that ancient landscape. Then, researchers will drill a hole 800 to 1,000 feet deep to test how accurate the data is.

The intent is to discover how the paleokarst will interact with plumes of carbon dioxide, said Saibal Bhattacharya, a researcher at the KGS who is a principal investigator in the project along with geologist Jason Rush.

In the end, Bhattacharya said the research team hopes to learn if the aquifer is big enough to make storing carbon dioxide worthwhile and if there is a risk of carbon dioxide leaking to the surface.

The research being done by the KGS is just one of many aspects in studying the feasibility of carbon sequestration. Researchers in other parts of the country are studying ways to capture carbon emissions and how to transport those emissions to storage areas.

“There’s lots of unanswered questions,” Bhattacharya said.

What Bhattacharya and Rush learn can also be applied to the oil and gas industry, Bhattacharya said. The Kansas Geological Survey is partnering with Murfin Drilling Co. and Vess Oil Corp. on the project.