QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF VERTICAL ELECTRICAL SOUNDING (VES) DATA ACQUIRED ALONG PROFILE 10 WITHIN THE 8 KM PHASE II DEVELOPMENT AREA OF GIDAN KWANO CAMPUS, MINNA, NIGERIA, AIMED AT INTERPRETING SUBSURFACE CHARACTERISTICS AND GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE.

ABSTRACT In line with the wider programme of continuously seeking refinements to the hydro-centric deductions arising from different modes of studies initiated at the southern Phase II Development, it becomes most fitting to process a suite of acquired vertical electrical sounding data that was omitted in the earlier processing schedule for this Development. This wilful omission was due to the fact that the principal corpus of the VES data available for the processing schedule was acquired in the transverse traverse format whilst the suite of the VES data of interest herein was acquired in the longitudinal traverse format. The aim of the study herein is implementing quantitative analysis of VES data acquired along the tenth profile of the southern 8 km? Phase II Development, Gidan Kwano Campus, Minna, by the route of generation of log-log plots and their analyses thereof. After determining resistivity values from the field resistance values, these resistivity values were initially subjected to the log-log plot routine of the Windows-compatible WinResist®️ software whence corresponding field curves for all the stations occupied were produced. The log-log plots indicate that, along the six stations of the P10 traverse, there are two stations designated as two-layer locations, two stations designated as three-layer locations, and two stations designated as four-layer locations in that coincident even format, although the three-layer structure is the expected norm at the local basement geological province. Whereas, too, the norm is to have a comparatively high resistivity value for the third layer of a discerned three-layer geological structure at a general area of survey at the local basement complex geological province in ordinal format, this is not the case for the three-layer P10-11 and P10-12 locations, as well as for the four-layer P10-13 and P10-15 locations. The two-layer locations of P10-14 and P10-16, being "out-of-the-norm" represent what could be referred to herein as "expected geological log-log plot anomaly." For this study, three tiers or series of interpretation schedule was employed to determine the VES survey station that could most appropriately be tagged "hydro-centric" or water-bearing: the "protocol of Ackworth 1981)," the set-piece "desired outcome" interpretation schedule, and the protocols of the Geoexplore Empirical Standardisation for Minna Area, As a result of these dependable rules-of-thumb, Stations P10-11, P10-12, P10-13, and P10-15 are flagged as groundwater prospect locations and therefore fit to be tagged as "hydro-centric. Thus, these locations should be incorporated into the list of groundwater locations deduced from the principal study regarding exploitable groundwater prospects at the southern Phase II Development. Since Station P10-11 is flagged as a groundwater prospect location, Station P10-12 is flagged as a groundwater prospect location in , "assured" mode, Station P10-13 is flagged as a groundwater prospect location, and P10-15 is flagged as a groundwater prospect location with the character of P10-15 being discerned as "sandy" over a comparatively thick extent, it is recommended that these four locations, still being outside the polluted zone of the burgeoning built-up area that is the students" hostel facilities, be exploited for their groundwater potentials. If faced with cost-saving drilling measures, then the points of P10-12 and P10-15 should be exploited in the initial phase.