Underground water

Water table
Aquifer
Groundwater fluctuations and
Groundwater composition
Hydrologic cycle
What is groundwater?
• When rain falls to the ground, the water does not stop moving.

• Some of it flows along the surface to streams or lakes, some of it is used by

plants, some evaporates and returns to the atmosphere, and some sinks into the
ground. (Imagine pouring a glass of water onto a pile of sand. Where does the
water go? The water moves into the spaces between the particles of sand).

• Groundwater is water that is found underground in the cracks and spaces in soil,
sand and rock.
Aquifers:
• Groundwater is stored in--and moves slowly through--layers of soil, sand and
rocks called aquifers.

• Aquifers typically consist of gravel, sand, sandstone, or fractured rock, like

limestone. These materials are permeable because they have large connected
spaces that allow water to flow through.

• The speed at which groundwater flows depends on the size of the spaces in the
soil or rock and how well the spaces are connected.
Water table:
- The area where water fills the aquifer is called the saturated zone (or saturation
zone). The top of this zone is called the water table.
- The water table may be located only a foot below the ground’s surface or it can sit
hundreds of feet down.
• Groundwater can be found almost everywhere.

• The water table may be deep or shallow; and may rise or fall depending on many
factors.

• Heavy rains or melting snow may cause the water table to rise, or heavy pumping
of groundwater supplies may cause the water table to fall.

Zone of aeration
Water table

Zone of saturation
• Factors controlling groundwater occurrence:

(i) Climate: Arid climate: GW occurs at great depth

Humid climate: GW occurs at shallow depth

(ii) Topography: Flat topography: WT remains parallel to the surface

Undulatory topography: WT follows undulations i.e. rising under
hills and flattening out under valleys often
interesting the valley floor so that the
occupying river bed is fed.

(iii) Proporties of rocks: Porosity, permeabilty

Porous rocks: loose sands, gravels, sandstone, limestones,

shale

Permeable rocks: loose sands, gravels, sandstone,

limestones.

Impervious: Shale, crystalline rocks, cemented sandstone

or limestone.
Sources of Groundwater

1. Meteoric water: Rain, rivers, lakes, snow, ice etc.

2. Condensational water: In deserts and semi deserts

3. Connate water: Also called fossil water, i.e. water trapped in the sediments
at the time of their formation

4. Juvenile water: Also called magmatic water, generates during cooling of

magma.
5. Mixed Surface water: From all these above types combined.
Groundwater composition:

• Dissolved constituents in groundwater:

• A wide range of different elements can become dissolved in groundwater as a
result of interactions with the atmosphere, the surficial environment, soil and
bedrock.
• Groundwaters tend to have much higher concentrations of most constituents
than do surface waters, and deep groundwaters that have been in contact with
rock for a long time tend to have higher concentrations than shallow and or
young waters.

• Dissolved constituents are typically expressed in mg/L for the major

components and µg/L for the trace elements. Some rare elements are expressed
in ng/L (nanograms/litre).

• Since 1 mg is 0.001 g and 1 litre of water is very close to 1000 g, mg/L is

equivalent to parts per million (ppm), while µg/L is equivalent to parts per
billion (ppb).
• Major components:
• The major dissolved components of groundwaters include the anions
bicarbonate, (i.e. HCO3- - ) chloride (i.e. Cl - ) and sulphat (i.e. SO4- - ), and the
cations sodium, Na, Ca, Mg and K.

• These constituents are typically present at concentrations in the range of a few

mg/L to several hundred mg/L.

• Trace elements
• All of the elements in the periodic table are present at some concentration in
most water samples, but only a fraction of these are important to us.
• Trace elements Si and F- are the most abundant of the trace elements in these
samples, followed by B, Sr, Ba and Fe. In fact the concentrations of some of the
trace constituents in these samples (esp. Si) are higher than those for some of the
so-called major components.
• Some of the values are listed as undetected (ud), indicating not that there isn’t
any there, but that the concentrations are below the detection limit for the
analytical method used.
 Origin of Life
• Life on Earth began more than 3000Ma ago,
evolving from the most basic of microbes into
a dazzling array of complexity over time.

• But how did the first organisms on the only

known home to life in the universe develop
from the primordial soup?

• One theory involved a "shocking" start.

Another idea is utterly chilling. And one
theory is out of this world!

7 Theories : On origin of Life

 1. It started with an electric spark:
•Electric sparks can generate amino acids and sugars from an atmosphere loaded with
water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen as was shown in the famous Miller-Urey
experiment reported in 1953
•suggesting that lightning might have helped create the key building blocks of life on
Earth in its early days.
•Over millions of years, larger and more complex molecules could form.
•Although research since then has revealed the early atmosphere of Earth was
actually hydrogen-poor, scientists have suggested that volcanic clouds in the early
atmosphere might have held methane, ammonia and hydrogen and been filled with
lightning as well.
Miller-Urey experiment, 1953:
• In 1953, chemists Harold Urey and Stanley Miller performed a landmark
experiment intended to mimic the primordial conditions that created the first
amino acids, by exposing a mix of gases to a lightning-like electrical discharge.
• Five years later, in 1958, Miller performed another variation on this experiment.
This time he added hydrogen sulfide, a gas spewed out by volcanoes, to the mix.
• They found an abundance of promising molecules: 23 amino acids and four
amines, another type of organic molecule. The addition of hydrogen sulfide had
also led to the creation of sulfur-containing amino acids, which are important to
the chemistry of life. (One of these, methionine, initiates the synthesis of proteins.)
• The results of the experiment – which exposed a mix of volcanic gases, including
hydrogen sulfide, methane, ammonia and carbon dioxide gas to an electrical discharge
– tell us that volcanic eruptions coinciding with lightning may have played a role in
synthesizing large quantities and a variety of biologically crucial molecules on the
primitive Earth.
2. Molecules of life met on clay
• The first molecules of life might have met on clay, according to an idea elaborated by
organic chemist Alexander Graham Cairns-Smith, University of Glasgow in
Scotland.
• These surfaces might not only have concentrated these organic compounds together,
but also helped organize them into patterns much like our genes do now.
• The main role of DNA is to store information on how other molecules should be
arranged.
• Genetic sequences in DNA are essentially instructions on how amino acids should be
arranged in proteins.
• Cairns-Smith suggests that mineral crystals in clay could have arranged organic
molecules into organized patterns. After a while, organic molecules took over this job
and organized themselves.
• A significant relationship between the structure of DNA molecules and the structure
of certain kinds of mineral crystals.
• He says that while patterned structures that replicate themselves are common in
the inorganic world of crystals, it is a rare quality in the organic world — DNA and
RNA are the only organic molecules we know of that strongly exhibit this
 3. Life began at deep-sea vents:
• The deep-sea vent theory suggests that life may have begun at submarine
hydrothermal vents spewing key hydrogen-rich molecules.
• Their rocky nooks could then have concentrated these molecules together and
provided mineral catalysts for critical reactions.
• Even now, these vents, rich in chemical and thermal energy, sustain vibrant
ecosystems.
4. Life had a chilly start:
• Ice might have covered the oceans 3000 Ma ago,
as the sun was about a third less luminous than it
is now, scientists say.
• This layer of ice, possibly hundreds of feet thick,
might have protected fragile organic compounds
in the water below from ultraviolet light and
destruction from cosmic impacts.
• The cold might have also helped these molecules
to survive longer, allowing key reactions to
happen.
5. The answer lies in understanding DNA formation:
•Nowadays DNA needs proteins in order to form, and proteins require DNA to form,
so how could these have formed without each other?
•The answer may be RNA, which can store information like DNA, serve as an enzyme
like proteins, and help create both DNA and proteins.
•Later DNA and proteins succeeded this "RNA world," because they are more
efficient.
•RNA still exists and performs several functions in organisms, including acting as an
on-off switch for some genes.
•The question still remains how RNA got here in the first place.
•And while some scientists think the molecule could have spontaneously arisen on
Earth, others say that was very unlikely to have happened.
•A study in 2015 suggests the missing link in this RNA puzzle may have been found
Missing RNA link
•This link would bridge this gap in knowledge between the primordial chemical soup and the
complex molecules needed to build life.
•Current theories say life on Earth started in an "RNA world," in which the RNA molecule
guided the formation of life, only later taking a backseat to DNA, which could more efficiently
achieve the same end result.
•Like DNA, RNA is a helix-shaped molecule that can store or pass on information. (DNA is a
double-stranded helix, whereas RNA is single-stranded.)
• Many scientists think the first RNA molecules existed in a primordial chemical
soup — probably pools of water on the surface of Earth billions of years ago.

• The idea was that the very first RNA molecules formed from collections of three
chemicals: a sugar (called a ribose); a phosphate group, which is a phosphorus atom
connected to oxygen atoms; and a base, which is a ring-shaped molecule of carbon,
nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen atoms.

• RNA also needed nucleotides, made of phosphates and sugars.

6. Life had simple beginnings:

• Instead of developing from complex molecules such as RNA, life might have begun with
smaller molecules interacting with each other in cycles of reactions.

• These might have been contained in simple capsules akin to cell membranes, and over
time more complex molecules that performed these reactions better than the smaller ones
could have evolved.
• Scenarios dubbed "metabolism-first" models, as opposed to the "gene-first" model of the
"RNA world" hypothesis.
7. Life was brought here from elsewhere in space:
•Perhaps life did not begin on Earth at all, but was brought here from elsewhere in
space.
•For instance, rocks regularly get blasted off Mars by cosmic impacts, and a number
of Martian meteorites have been found on Earth that some researchers have
controversially suggested brought microbes over here, potentially making us all
Martians originally.
•Other scientists have even suggested that life might have hitchhiked on comets from
other star systems.
•However, even if this concept were true, the question of how life began on Earth
would then only change to how life began elsewhere in space.