Groundwater flow in an ‘underfit’ carbonate aquifer in a semiarid climate: application of environmental tracers to the Salt Basin, New Mexico (USA)
| العنوان: | Groundwater flow in an ‘underfit’ carbonate aquifer in a semiarid climate: application of environmental tracers to the Salt Basin, New Mexico (USA) |
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| المؤلفون: | Andre B. O. Ritchie, Fred M. Phillips, Sophia C. Sigstedt |
| المصدر: | Hydrogeology Journal. 24:841-863 |
| بيانات النشر: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2016. |
| سنة النشر: | 2016 |
| مصطلحات موضوعية: | Hydrology, geography, geography.geographical_feature_category, Groundwater flow, 0208 environmental biotechnology, Drainage basin, Infiltration basin, Aquifer, 02 engineering and technology, Groundwater recharge, 020801 environmental engineering, Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous), Sedimentary basin analysis, Depression-focused recharge, Geology, Groundwater, Water Science and Technology |
| الوصف: | The Salt Basin is a semiarid hydrologically closed drainage basin in southern New Mexico, USA. The aquifers in the basin consist largely of Permian limestone and dolomite. Groundwater flows from the high elevations (∼2,500 m) of the Sacramento Mountains south into the Salt Lakes, which are saline playas. The aquifer is ‘underfit’ in the sense that depths to groundwater are great (∼300 m), implying that the aquifer could transmit much more water than it does. In this study, it is speculated that this characteristic is a result of a geologically recent reduction in recharge due to warming and drying at the end of the last glacial period. Water use is currently limited, but the basin has been proposed for large-scale groundwater extraction and export projects. Wells in the basin are of limited utility for hydraulic testing; therefore, the study focused on environmental tracers (major-ion geochemistry, stable isotopes of O, H, and C, and 14C dating) for basin analysis. The groundwater evolves from a Ca–HCO3 type water into a Ca–Mg (Na) – HCO3–Mg (Cl) water as it flows toward the center of the basin due to dedolomitization driven by gypsum dissolution. Carbon-14 ages corrected for dedolomitization ranged from less than 1,000 years in the recharge area to 19,000 years near the basin center. Stable isotopes are consistent with the presence of glacial-period recharge that is much less evaporated than modern. This supports the hypothesis that the underfit nature of the aquifer is a result of a geologically recent reduction in recharge. |
| تدمد: | 1435-0157 1431-2174 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s10040-016-1402-2 |
| URL الوصول: | https://explore.openaire.eu/search/publication?articleId=doi_________::f401d184e56904db1607193bb194e382 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10040-016-1402-2 |
| Rights: | CLOSED |
| رقم الانضمام: | edsair.doi...........f401d184e56904db1607193bb194e382 |
| قاعدة البيانات: | OpenAIRE |
| تدمد: | 14350157 14312174 |
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| DOI: | 10.1007/s10040-016-1402-2 |