When examining the geology of a region for potential useable aquifers, what char
ID: 514 • Letter: W
Question
When examining the geology of a region for potential useable aquifers, what characteristics or factors would you consider? Also, taking into account certain natural and human factors, which areas would you avoid?200-300 word response
When examining the geology of a region for potential useable aquifers, what characteristics or factors would you consider? Also, taking into account certain natural and human factors, which areas would you avoid?
200-300 word response
When examining the geology of a region for potential useable aquifers, what characteristics or factors would you consider? Also, taking into account certain natural and human factors, which areas would you avoid?
Explanation / Answer
Geology plays an important role in determining topography or the lay of the land, the development of soils, and the location and availability of groundwater. Geologic bedrock forms the foundation that our environment and society are built upon, and eventually limits the depth of groundwater movement.
On top of the bedrock lies unconsolidated geologic materials that may contain aquifers that store, transmit, and yield reasonable amounts of groundwater to wells and springs. The location and characteristics of the aquifer depend on geology and soil properties.
The following factors are very important in the geology of aquifiers:-
1 - Bedrock Geology.
Crystalline Granite and Sandstone limit the downward flow of water and determine the depth to which holes need be drilled to tap groundwater.
2 - Uhnconsolidated materials
This overlies the bedrock layer. The shallower this layer, the lesser the water. A tradeoff is that it also means lesser contaminant.
3 - Groundwater provinces.
Groundwater provinces are areas with similar geologic and hydrologic characteristics such as rock materials, topography, surface drainage, and availability of groundwater.
they are of 3 types.
a - drift-crystalline
b - sand-plain
c - drift
drift and sand plain province types yield the maximum water (upto 2000 gallons per minute).
Some of the water bearing areas (provinces) are actually exposed overlayers forming actual surface soil (sand province) and so the quality and quantity it yields is affected by human activity.
Groundwater contamination can result from contaminating water on the surface before it recharges the aquifer.
4 - soil and aquifier properties.
The soil acts as a natural filter to screen out many substances that mix with the water. But water will transport some contaminants into thegroundwater. The amount of groundwater recharge, storage, discharge, as well as the extent of groundwater contamination, all depend on the soil properties:
a - Texture: grain size, texture classification, soil series classification
b - Porosity
c - Cpecific yield
d - Permeability
e - Attenuation capacity (soil's filtering ability)
Apart from human factors, geological factors affecting yield of aquifiers are factors like
1 - how sloping is the bed rock
2 - At what depth
3 - How thick is the overburden of unconsolidated mass over it.
What areas to avoid:
1 - Regions of low depth of bedrock.
2 - sand and gravel provinces where the sand and gravel layer is the actual surface soil.
3 - Areas where the bedrock is sloping, as water table will tend to deplete fast if areas further lower start using water too.
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