GROUNDWATER

 Hydrogeology: study of groundwater

 Groundwater: liquid water that resides in sediment or rock under the surface of
the Earth
o major component of the hydrologic cycle.
What is Groundwater:
 Groundwater: subsurface water found in pores and fractures in geological media
o Classically it is defined as water below the water table
o Broader definition includes water in unsaturated soils and sediments
o Any type of water = just liquid
o Hydro cycle =
 Freshwater: 10,530,000 km^3/d reservoir, but small discharge
percentage
 Saline groundwater: 12,870,000 km^3/d reservoir
 Water reservoirs on Earth:
o Oceans: 1,300,000,000 km^3
 97.3%
o Freshwater: 35,000,000 km^3
 2.7%
 Freshwater reservoirs on Earth:
o Glaciers – 69%, Liquid freshwater – 31%
o Fresh groundwater – 30.2%
 Lakes, soils, atmosphere, rivers, biomass has significantly lower
percentages
 Percentage of population reliant on groundwater for domestic use:
o ~25-40% in Canada (~9-14 million people)
o ~70% in Maritimes
o Groundwater used principally for agriculture (Prairies), industry (QC, BC),
rural homes (ON, NB, NFLD)
 A) Groundwater resources:
o Drinking water, irrigation, industry
 B) Groundwater contamination:
o Agriculture, waste water, industrial spills, energy development
 C) Groundwater geotechnical
o Dams + reservoirs, building foundations, landslides + mudflows
Where is Groundwater Found?
 Aquifer – a saturated geologic unit that readily transmits significant (economic)
quantities of water (to a well)
o Groundwater flows through aquifers
o Low porosity = can still be good aquifer (ex: granite)
 Aquitard – a saturated geologic unit that poorly transmits water in low quantities
insufficient for a well
o Aquitards have low permeability
 Porosity = amount of water + void space
o Intergranular: ~30% (Sandstone)
 30% is void space
o Fracture: ~1%
 Bedrock – 1% void space
o Dual porosity = intergranular + fracture
o Groundwater resides in subsurface pore spaces, the open spaces within
any sediment or rock
o The total volume of open space is termed porosity
o Porosity can be filled with water or air
o Pores can also become filled with mineral cement and other fluids, like oil
or natural gas
 Permeability = ease of flow
o Permeability is the ease of water flow due to pore interconnectedness
o High-permeability material allows water to flow readily
o Water flows slowly through low-permeability material

 Aquifers + Aquitards:
o An aquifer is a high-porosity, high-permeability rock that transmits water
easily
 Unconfined aquifer lies at the surface
 Because it is in contact with human activities, it is easily
contaminated.
 Confined aquifer lies beneath an aquitard
 Being isolated from the surface, it is less susceptible to
pollution
o An aquitard is lower-permeability rock that hinders water flow. Aquifers
and aquitards are commonly interlayered.
 Unsaturated zone + Saturated zone + water table
o Water table – dig down + get water
 Level where you have saturated conditions in water pressure (1
atm)
o Above water table. Capillary fringe – full saturated pores but under tension

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 o Exceed capillary tension + pores drain
o Unsaturated:
 Grains of materials, water + gas (air, with high CO2 and low O2)

 Unconfined vs Confined Aquifers:

o 1) Unconfined or Phreatic aquifer:
 Connected to atmosphere above
 Unsaturated zone
 Water table defines the groundwater
pressure
 Saturated zone
 Direct recharge occurs along its length
o 2) Confined or Artesian aquifer:
 Bound above by a low-permeability
formation (aquitard)
 Fully saturated, no unsaturated zone
 Potential surface (or pressure surface, like
water table) defines the groundwater
pressure
 Different types of aquifers:
o Sand Aquifer
o Clay Aquitard – water moves through it but slowly
 Sand aquifer below
o Rock Aquifers
 A) Sandstone
 Sandstone in southern Jordan, provided groundwater to the
400 BC Nebatean city of Petra
 Sandstone in Petra stained along bedding planes by
groundwater flow and mineral oxidation
 B) Basalt

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  In Hawaii, flows of ‘a‘a and pahoihoi lava cool to basalt
forming a series of aquifers kilometers thick
 C) Limestone karst
 Anticosti Island where groundwater flows from the limestone
rocks and feeds salmon streams
 Sampling a groundwater spring from karst on Anticosti
Island, for baseline studies as the island was being
considered for shale gas and oil development
 Karst caves and channels are formed from dissolution of
limestone by the infiltration of groundwater with dissolved
carbonic acid from the soil.
o CaCO3 + CO2 + H2O  Ca2+ + 2HCO3–
 if water table lowers, caves immerge and become exposed
 Carlsbad caverns are in New Mexico (near Texas Border)
 D) Fracture Granite
 The Squamish Chief granite dome has fractures where
groundwater discharge sustains vegetation
 Green – bc water flow + allows vegetation
 Sampling groundwater in a gold mine in Yellowknife to study
the movement of groundwater in fractured granitic rock.

Gradient and Flow:

 Groundwater recharge takes place by percolation
of rain through the soil and unsaturated zone
 Recharge can also take place from riverbanks or
reservoirs if the aquifer is being pumped to lower
the water level
 To get groundwater to move, we need a driving force or gradient. Flow is
proportional to gradient.
 Gradients in aquifers occur between high
groundwater levels and low levels.
 Groundwater flow was quantified by Henri
Darcy in 1856
 Darcy’s Law for groundwater flow through an
aquifer relates discharge, Q (m3/s) to
gradient, Dh/Dl (m/m) and resistance, K
(m/s) to flow through a given area, A (m2)

 Piezometers in a cross section:

o The water level inside the piezometer measures the water level in the
aquifer

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 o Comparing water levels between two piezometers gives the gradient
(Dh/Dl)
o Groundwater flow is along the gradient, from high level to low level
o Examples of piezometer screens at the tip of the piezometer standpipe
(pvc pipe) that goes up to surface
 The screen allows the groundwater to rise up the pipe to the level
of its hydraulic head.
 Artesian (Confined Aquifers) Wells and the Potentiometric Surface:
o Artesian wells tap confined, tilted aquifers that are pressurized by upland
recharge
o Water rises in artesian wells to the potentiometric surface, which is an
analogue of the water table for a confined aquifer
o A well casing below this surface will flow without pumping
o City water distribution systems are designed like artesian aquifers
o A water tower establishes the potentiometric surface
 Flowing Artesian Well in a Confined Aquifer
o When the hydrostatic head for a well in a confined aquifer is higher than
the land surface, the well can flow
o This is similar to a spring, which occurs where the water table “outcrops”
in a valley and water from the unconfined aquifer flows onto the surface
 Springs:
o Springs occur where the aquifer outcrops or intersects with the land
surface
o This might be a focused spring with flow or it might be a diffuse seepage
face

Groundwater Resources:
 Qanats: ancient water resource technology to tap the water table
 Over pumping of groundwater:
o Excessive pumping of wells can cause neighboring wells to go dry
o Drawdown (lowering) of the w.t.
o Cone of depression in the w.t.
 Problems with groundwater withdrawal:
o 1) Land subsidence (sinking)
 Water in pore space acts to hold grains apart
 When groundwater is removed, sediment grains compress and the
pores collapse
 This causes the land surface to crack and subside irreversibly
o 2) Saline Intrusion
 In coastal regions, fresh groundwater flows over a saline wedge
due to density differences
 The depth of the freshwater dense is 40x its height above sea level.

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  Drawdown of the water table by 1 m from excessive groundwater
withdrawal causes saltwater to be drawn into wells by as much as
40 m.
o Oman fossil groundwater recharged 13,000 to 30,000 years BP
o Dates by measuring the carbon 14 of the dissolved inorganic carbon in
groundwater
 Fossil groundwater nourishing desert agriculture = mining

Groundwater Contamination:
 Nutrients = nitrogen
 Fuels + Solvents
 Highway road salt
 Industrial wastewaters
 Nitrates:
o From fertilized lawn, septic system, atmosphere, animal waste + fertilized
crop (most)
 Organic contaminants:
o Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids (DNAPL) and Light Non-Aqueous
Phase Liquids LNAPL) ee slightly soluble organic liquids
 If spilled on the surface, they flow down and sit below the water
table (DNAPL) or on the water table (LNAPL) and contaminate
groundwaters for hundreds of years.
o DNAPL – trichloroethylene (TCE) used in dry-cleaning as a solvent is
pervasive and very difficult to treat in the subsurface
o LNAPL – gasoline (benzene-toluene-ethylbenzene-xylene or BTEX) is
pervasive, but volatile with leakage from old underground storage tanks
(every old gas station has one)
 Aquitards: Barriers to contaminants: (protecting groundwater resources)
o Hydrofracking
o Carbon capture + deep storage
o ==? Nuclear waste disposal in a deep geological repository
o