W. F. Harris | Geology Reports

USGS1987

Geohydrology and susceptibility of Coldwater Spring and Jacksonville fault areas to surface contamination in Calhoun County, Alabama

Coldwater Spring in eastern Calhoun County, Alabama, is one of the largest springs in Alabama. The spring, which has an average discharge of about 31 million gallons per day, supplies water for about 70,000 people in the Anniston, Alabama area. A potentiometric map of the study area indicates that the recharge area for the aquifer system that supplies the spring is only about 23 square miles. However, base-flow data for streams in the area indicate that this recharge area is not sufficient to account for an average discharge of 31 million gallons per day from Coldwater Spring. Complex folding and faulting of the carbonate and quart zitic rocks that comprise the aquifer system may have produced fractures and joints that increase recharge to the spring. Some recharge to the spring may be derived from outside the recharge area delineated from the potentiometric map or from the surface. This part of the recharge area contamination from the surface. This part of the recharge area consists of flat to gently rolling terrain underlain by cavernous limestone and fractured quartzite. (USGS)

Water-Resources Investigations Report↗

USGS1987

Geohydrology and susceptibility of major aquifers to surface contamination in Alabama; area 1

This report delineates and describes the geohydrology and susceptibility of the major aquifers to contamination in Area 1 - Colbert, Franklin, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limeston, Madison, and Morgan Counties. Most of the area is underlain by a Mississippian carbonate sequence that includes two major aquifers, the Tuscumbia-Fort Payne aquifer and the Bangor aquifer. A third major aquifer, the Tuscaloosa aquifer of Cretaceous age, occurs in the southwest part of the area. The Mississippi carbonate aquifers are the Tuscumbia-Fort Payne aquifer which includes most Tuscumbia Limestone and the Fort Payne Chert, and a small area of the Monteagle Limestone, and the Bangor aquifer which includes the Bangor Limestone and Hartselle Sandstone. Both of these aquifers possess highly-variable secondary porosity and permeability related to fractures that have been enlarged, sometimes to cavernous proportions, due to solution processes. The Tuscaloosa aquifer consists of the Tuscaloosa Group, an unconsolidated clastic deposit that has relatively uniform primary porosity and permeability. Significant quantities of groundwater are available from each of the aquifers. Water levels at nearly 2 ,000 wells indicate that, for each aquifer, general groundwater movement is from topographically high to low areas. Each of the aquifers is recharged throughout its outcrop in the study area and is susceptible to contamination within the outcrop. Generalized topographic settings such as closed-contour depressions are identified as areas that are highly susceptible to contamination. Specific features such as sinkholes also are identified as extremely susceptible to contamination.

Alabama↗