The "pore tree" model of pore structure (Simons and Finson, 1979; Simons, 1982) was developed for catalysts and sorbents to allow diffusion within a porous media in the absence of convection through the media. Under current ARO sponsorship, the pore tree model is being extended to describe the permeable pore structure which characterizes the subsurface flow of water in soil, the dispersion of contaminants and the in-situ remediation of contaminated sites. Permeability requires a statistical determination the "branches" that are common to several trees to allow percolation through the large scale (mobile) structure in addition to diffusion through the smaller scale (immobile) structure. The first step in describing the permeability is to determine the pore distribution function which represents the number of pores of radius r sub p per unit cross section of an arbitrary plane and also contained within a specific tree. Following a review of the statistical description of the pore tree in Section II, this first step is carried out in Section III. Subsequent technical reports will utilize this distribution function to determine the interconnectivity of the pores and the distribution of the permeability with pore size. -BKA
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