A series of wells were recently drilled in what is thought to be a potential aqu

Question

A series of wells were recently drilled in what is thought to be a potential aquifer. The aquifer is 40 km long and 3 km wide, with an average thickness of 70 m. A fully saturated core that is a good representation of all core samples taken is brought in for analysis. The core has a volume of 100 cm3 , a wet weight of 250 g, a dry weight of 242 g, and a density of solids of 2.67 g/cm3 . The specific yield of the aquifer is estimated at 60%. Use this information to compute the following:

C) volume of usable water

d)Possible material of the unknown aquifer

Explanation / Answer

C)

The dry weight represents the weight of material only as all the water will be evaporated when the core is dried and hence the difference in the wet weight and dry weight of core will give us the weight of water present in the core, by using this analogy we can say:

Weight of water in 100cm3 of core = 250-242 = 8 grams

Now using density = mass/volume

Volume of water is 1kg/m3, volume of water = 8 milliliter in 100 cm3 of rock

Volume of aquifer = 40km x 3km x 0.07km = 8.4 km3 or 8.4 x 1015 ml of rock volume

Volume of water will be = (8.4 x 1015) x 8/100 = 67.2 x 1013ml

Usable water = 0.6 x 67.2 x 1013 = 40.32 x 1013 ml of water would be there.

D)

As the density of the material is given as 2.67 g/cm3 which is density of sand and hence we can say that the material of aquifer is sandstone.

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