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At least 505 records · Page 28Linked to original sources
USGS2007

Estimation of evapotranspiration by reed canarygrass using field observations and model simulations

Reed canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea) commonly invades meadow wetlands, effectively dominating water use and outcompeting native plants. Objectives of this study were to (i) estimate daily, seasonal and annual water use by reed canarygrass using shallow water table fluctuations; and (ii) calibrate the ALMANAC (Agricultural Land Management Alternative with Numerical Assessment Criteria) model to accurately simulate water uptake by this grass. Using a groundwater well, the water table under an area in Iowa dominated by reed canarygrass was monitored hourly. Differences between water level measurements taken each hour were averaged to determine the hourly water table change in each month. Using these estimates of water use, the ALMANAC model was then calibrated to simulate plant transpiration values close to these water table use rates. Average monthly calculated daily plant water use rates were 3.3 mm d-1 in July and 2.3-2.8 mm d-1 in May, June, August, and September. Simulated bimonthly values for measured water use and plant transpiration simulated by the ALMANAC model differed by 14% or less. From May to October the mean ratio of measured to simulated values was 94%. Thus, the similarity between simulated plant transpiration and water use from the water table showed promise that this process-based model can realistically simulate water use under such grassland systems. ?? 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Journal of Hydrology↗
USGS2007

Effects of topography and soil properties on recharge at two sites in an agricultural field

Field experiments were conducted from 1992 to 1995 to estimate ground water recharge rates at two sites located within a 2.7-hectare agricultural field. The field lies in a sand plain setting in central Minnesota and is cropped continuously in field corn. The sites are located at a topographically high (upland) site and a topographically low (lowland) site in an effort to quantify the effects of depression focusing of recharge. Three site-specific methods were used to estimate recharge rates: well hydrograph analysis, chlorofluorocarbon age dating, and an unsaturated zone water balance. All three recharge methods indicated that recharge rates at the lowland site (annual average of all methods of 29 cm) exceeded those at the upland site (annual average of 18 cm). On an annual basis, estimates by the individual methods ranged from 12 to 44 percent of precipitation at the upland site and from 21 to 83 percent at the lowland site. The difference in recharge rates between the sites is primarily attributed to depression focusing of surface water runon at the lowland site. However, two other factors were also important: the presence of thin lamellae at the upland site, and coarser textured soils below a depth of 1.5 m at the lowland site.

Minnesota↗
USGS2013

Estimating hydraulic properties from tidal attenuation in the Northern Guam Lens Aquifer, territory of Guam, USA

Tidal-signal attenuations are analyzed to compute hydraulic diffusivities and estimate regional hydraulic conductivities of the Northern Guam Lens Aquifer, Territory of Guam (Pacific Ocean), USA. The results indicate a significant tidal-damping effect at the coastal boundary. Hydraulic diffusivities computed using a simple analytical solution for well responses to tidal forcings near the periphery of the island are two orders of magnitude lower than for wells in the island’s interior. Based on assigned specific yields of ~0.01–0.4, estimated hydraulic conductivities are ~20–800 m/day for peripheral wells, and ~2,000–90,000 m/day for interior wells. The lower conductivity of the peripheral rocks relative to the interior rocks may best be explained by the effects of karst evolution: (1) dissolutional enhancement of horizontal hydraulic conductivity in the interior; (2) case-hardening and concurrent reduction of local hydraulic conductivity in the cliffs and steeply inclined rocks of the periphery; and (3) the stronger influence of higher-conductivity regional-scale features in the interior relative to the periphery. A simple numerical model calibrated with measured water levels and tidal response estimates values for hydraulic conductivity and storage parameters consistent with the analytical solution. The study demonstrates how simple techniques can be useful for characterizing regional aquifer properties.

Hydrogeology Journal↗
USGS2019

Anthropogenic and geologic causes of anomalously high uranium concentrations in groundwater used for drinking water supply in the southeastern San Joaquin Valley, CA

Concentrations of uranium (U) >30 µg/L in groundwater are relatively uncommon in drinking water in the United States but can be of concern in those areas where complex interactions of aquifer materials and anthropogenic alterations of the natural flow regime mobilize uranium. High concentrations (>30 µg/L) of U in the southeastern San Joaquin Valley, California, USA, have been detected in 24 percent of 257 domestic, irrigation, and public-supply wells sampled across an approximately 110,000 km2 area. The location of high concentrations depends on the interactions of U sources from fluvial fans that originate in the Sierra Nevada to the east and seepage of irrigation water that contains high concentrations of HCO3 that leaches U from the sediments. In addition, interactions with phosphate (PO4) from fertilized irrigated fields may sequester U in the aquifer. Principal component analysis of the data demonstrates that HCO3 and ions associated with high total dissolved solids in the aquifer and the percentage of agriculture near the well sampled are associated with high U concentrations. Nitrate concentrations do not appear to control release of U to the aquifer. Age dating of the groundwater and generally increasing U concentrations of the past 25 years in resampled wells where irrigation is prevalent suggests that high U concentrations are associated with younger water, indicating that irrigation of fields over the past 100 years has significantly contributed to increasing concentrations and mobilizing U. In some places, the groundwater is supersaturated with uranyl-containing minerals, as would be expected in roll front deposits. In general, the interaction of natural geological sources high in U, the anthropogenically driven addition of HCO3 and possibly phosphate fertilizer, control the location and concentration of U in each individual fluvial fan, but the addition of nitrate in fertilizer does not appear control the location of high U. These geochemical interactions can be used to determine controls on anomalously high U in alluvial aquifers

California↗
USGS2023

Crop water use dynamics over arid and semi-arid croplands in the lower Colorado River Basin

Numerous studies have evaluated the application of Remote Sensing (RS) techniques for mapping actual evapotranspiration (ETa) using Vegetation-Index-based (VI-based) and surface energy balance methods (SEB). SEB models computationally require a large effort for application. VI-based methods are fast and easy to apply and could therefore potentially be applied at high resolution; however, the accuracy of VI-based methods in comparison to SEB-based models remains unclear. We tested the ETa computed with the modified 2-band Enhanced Vegetation Index (METEVI2) implemented in the Google Earth Engine – for mapping croplands’ water use dynamics in the Lower Colorado River Basin. We compared METEVI2 with the well-established RS-based products of OpenET (Ensemble, eeMETRIC, SSEBop, SIMS, PT_JPL, DisALEXI and geeSEBAL). METEVI2 was then evaluated with measured ETa from four wheat fields (2017–2018). Results indicated that the monthly ETa variations for METEVI2 and OpenET models were comparable, though of varying magnitudes. On average, METEVI2 had the lowest difference rate from the average observed ETa with 17 mm underestimation, while SIMS had the highest difference rate (82 mm). Findings show that METEVI2 is a cost-effective ETa mapping tool in drylands to track crop water use. Future studies should test METEVI2’s applicability to croplands in more humid regions.

Lower Colorado River basin↗
USGS2005

Assessment of regional management strategies for controlling seawater intrusion

Simulation-optimization methods, applied with adequate sensitivity tests, can provide useful quantitative guidance for controlling seawater intrusion. This is demonstrated in an application to the West Coast Basin of coastal Los Angeles that considers two management options for improving hydraulic control of seawater intrusion: increased injection into barrier wells and in lieu delivery of surface water to replace current pumpage. For the base-case optimization analysis, assuming constant groundwater demand, in lieu delivery was determined to be most cost effective. Reduced-cost information from the optimization provided guidance for prioritizing locations for in lieu delivery. Model sensitivity to a suite of hydrologic, economic, and policy factors was tested. Raising the imposed average water-level constraint at the hydraulic-control locations resulted in nonlinear increases in cost. Systematic varying of the relative costs of injection and in lieu water yielded a trade-off curve between relative costs and injection/in lieu amounts. Changing the assumed future scenario to one of increasing pumpage in the adjacent Central Basin caused a small increase in the computed costs of seawater intrusion control. Changing the assumed boundary condition representing interaction with an adjacent basin did not affect the optimization results. Reducing the assumed hydraulic conductivity of the main productive aquifer resulted in a large increase in the model-computed cost. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management ?? ASCE.

Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management↗
USGS2011

Hydrogeology, Chemical and Microbial Activity Measurement Through Deep Permafrost

Little is known about hydrogeochemical conditions beneath thick permafrost, particularly in fractured crystalline rock, due to difficulty in accessing this environment. The purpose of this investigation was to develop methods to obtain physical, chemical, and microbial information about the subpermafrost environment from a surface-drilled borehole. Using a U-tube, gas and water samples were collected, along with temperature, pressure, and hydraulic conductivity measurements, 420 m below ground surface, within a 535 m long, angled borehole at High Lake, Nunavut, Canada, in an area with 460-m-thick permafrost. Piezometric head was well above the base of the permafrost, near land surface. Initial water samples were contaminated with drill fluid, with later samples <40% drill fluid. The salinity of the non-drill fluid component was <20,000 mg/L, had a Ca/Na ratio above 1, with ??18O values ???5??? lower than the local surface water. The fluid isotopic composition was affected by the permafrost-formation process. Nonbacteriogenic CH4 was present and the sample location was within methane hydrate stability field. Sampling lines froze before uncontaminated samples from the subpermafrost environment could be obtained, yet the available time to obtain water samples was extended compared to previous studies. Temperature measurements collected from a distributed temperature sensor indicated that this issue can be overcome easily in the future. The lack of methanogenic CH4 is consistent with the high sulfate concentrations observed in cores. The combined surface-drilled borehole/U-tube approach can provide a large amount of physical, chemical, and microbial data from the subpermafrost environment with few, controllable, sources of contamination. ?? 2010 The Author(s). Journal compilation ?? 2010 National Ground Water Association.

Ground Water↗
USGS2006

Modeling decadal timescale interactions between surface water and ground water in the central Everglades, Florida, USA

Surface-water and ground-water flow are coupled in the central Everglades, although the remoteness of this system has hindered many previous attempts to quantify interactions between surface water and ground water. We modeled flow through a 43,000 ha basin in the central Everglades called Water Conservation Area 2A. The purpose of the model was to quantify recharge and discharge in the basin's vast interior areas. The presence and distribution of tritium in ground water was the principal constraint on the modeling, based on measurements in 25 research wells ranging in depth from 2 to 37 m. In addition to average characteristics of surface-water flow, the model parameters included depth of the layer of 'interactive' ground water that is actively exchanged with surface water, average residence time of interactive ground water, and the associated recharge and discharge fluxes across the wetland ground surface. Results indicated that only a relatively thin (8 m) layer of the 60 m deep surfical aquifer actively exchanges surface water and ground water on a decadal timescale. The calculated storage depth of interactive ground water was 3.1 m after adjustment for the porosity of peat and sandy limestone. Modeling of the tritium data yielded an average residence time of 90 years in interactive ground water, with associated recharge and discharge fluxes equal to 0.01 cm d -1. 3H/3He isotopic ratio measurements (which correct for effects of vertical mixing in the aquifer with deeper, tritium-dead water) were available from several wells, and these indicated an average residence time of 25 years, suggesting that residence time was overestimated using tritium measurements alone. Indeed, both residence time and storage depth would be expected to be overestimated due to vertical mixing. The estimate of recharge and discharge (0.01 cm d-1) that resulted from tritium modeling therefore is still considered reliable, because the ratio of residence time and storage depth (used to calculated recharge and discharge) is much less sensitive to vertical mixing compared with residence time alone. We conclude that a small but potentially significant component of flow through the Everglades is recharged to the aquifer and stored there for years to decades before discharged back to surface water. Long-term storage of water and solutes in the ground-water system beneath the wetlands has implications for restoration of Everglades water quality.

Journal of Hydrology↗
USGS2004

The rise and fall of water hyacinth in Lake Victoria and the Kagera River basin, 1989-2001

Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solms) is an invasive aquatic macrophyte associated with major negative economic and ecological impacts to the Lake Victoria region since the plant's establishment in Uganda in the 1980s. Reliable estimates of water hyacinth distribution and extent are required to gauge the severity of the problem through time, relate water hyacinth abundance to environmental factors, identify areas requiring management action, and assess the efficacy of management actions. To provide such estimates and demonstrate the utility of remote sensing for this application, we processed and analyzed remotely sensed imagery to determine the distribution and extent of water hyacinth. Maps were produced and coverage was quantified using a hybrid unsupervised image classification approach with manual editing for each of the riparian countries of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, as well as for numerous gulfs and bays. A similar procedure was carried out for selected lakes in the Rwanda-Tanzania borderlands lakes region in the Kagera River basin. Results confirm the severity of the water hyacinth infestation, especially in the northern parts of the lake. A maximum lake-wide extent of at least 17,374 ha was attained in 1998. Following this, a combination of factors, including conditions associated with the 1997 to 1998 El Nin??o and biocontrol with water hyacinth weevils, appear to have contributed to a major decline in water hyacinth in the most affected parts of the lake. Some lakes in the Kagera basin, such as Lake Mihindi, Rwanda, were severely infested in the late 1990s, but the level of infestation in most of these decreased markedly by the early 2000s.

Journal of Aquatic Plant Management↗
USGS1998

An improved technique for modeling initial reservoir hydrocarbon saturation distributions: Applications in Illinois (USA) aux vases oil reservoirs

An improved technique for modeling the initial reservoir hydrocarbon saturation distributions is presented. In contrast to the Leverett J-function approach, this methodology (hereby termed flow-unit-derived initial oil saturation or FUSOI) determines the distributions of the initial oil saturations from a measure of the mean hydraulic radius, referred to as the flow zone indicator (FZI). FZI is derived from porosity and permeability data. In the FUSOI approach, capillary pressure parameters, S(wir), P(d), and ??, derived from the Brooks and Corey (1966) model [Brooks, R.H., Corey, A.T., 1966. Hydraulic properties of porous media, Hydrology Papers, Colorado State Univ., Ft. Collins, No. 3, March.], are correlated to the FZI. Subsequent applications of these parameters then permit the computation of improved hydrocarbon saturations as functions of FZI and height above the free water level (FWL). This technique has been successfully applied in the Mississippian Aux Vases Sandstone reservoirs of the Illinois Basin (USA). The Aux Vases Zeigler field (Franklin County, IL, USA) was selected for a field-wide validation of this FUSOI approach because of the availability of published studies. With the initial oil saturations determined on a depth-by-depth basis in cored wells, it was possible to geostatistically determine the three-dimensional (3-D) distributions of initial oil saturations in the Zeigler field. The original oil-in-place (OOIP), computed from the detailed initialization of the 3-D reservoir simulation model of the Zeigler field, was found to be within 5.6% of the result from a rigorous material balance method.An improved technique for modeling the initial reservoir hydrocarbon saturation distributions is presented. In contrast to the Leverett J-function approach, this methodology (hereby termed flow-unit-derived initial oil saturation or FUSOI) determines the distributions of the initial oil saturations from a measure of the mean hydraulic radius, referred to as the flow zone indicator (FZI). FZI is derived from porosity and permeability data. In the FUSOI approach, capillary pressure parameters, Swir, Pd, and ??, derived from the Brooks and Corey (1966) model, are correlated to the FZI. Subsequent applications of these parameters then permit the computation of improved hydrocarbon saturations as functions of FZI and height above the free water level (FWL). This technique has been successfully applied in the Mississippian Aux Vases Sandstone reservoirs of the Illinois Basin (USA). The Aux Vases Zeigler field (Franklin County, IL, USA) was selected for a field-wide validation of this FUSOI approach because of the availability of published studies. With the initial oil saturations determined on a depth-by-depth basis in cored wells, it was possible to geostatistically determine the three-dimensional (3-D) distributions of initial oil saturations in the Zeigler field. The original oil-in-place (OOIP), computed from the detailed initialization of the 3-D reservoir simulation model of the Zeigler field, was found to be within 5.6% of the result from a rigorous material balance method.

Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering↗
USGS2008

Investigating local variation in groundwater recharge along a topographic gradient, Walnut Creek, Iowa, USA

Groundwater recharge is an important component to hydrologic studies but is known to vary considerably across the landscape. The purpose of this study was to examine 4 years of water-level behavior in a transect of four water-table wells installed at Walnut Creek, Iowa, USA to evaluate how groundwater recharge varied along a topographic gradient. The amount of daily water-table rise (WTR) in the wells was summed at monthly and annual scales and estimates of specific yield (Sy) were used to convert the WTR to recharge. At the floodplain site, Sy was estimated from the ratio of WTR to total rainfall and in the uplands was based on the ratio of baseflow to WTR. In the floodplain, where the water table is shallow, recharge occurred throughout the year whenever precipitation occurred. In upland areas where the water table was deeper, WTR occurred in a stepped fashion and varied by season. Results indicated that the greatest amount of water-table rise over the 4-year period was observed in the floodplain (379 mm), followed by the upland (211 mm) and sideslopes (122 mm). Incorporating spatial variability in recharge in a watershed will improve groundwater resource evaluation and flow and transport modeling. ?? Springer-Verlag 2008.

Hydrogeology Journal↗
USGS1974

Time of travel and dye dosage for an irrigation canal system near Duchesne, Utah

Fracturing and subsidence of the land surface in the Milford area oil Utah have resulted from the decline of water levels due to pumping in unconsolidated deposits of Quaternary age. To the writers’ knowledge, these are the first such effects of ground-water withdrawal reported in Utah. The fracturing is in an area about 1 mile (1.6 km) wide and 11 miles (18 km) long near Milford, in an unsaturated clay-silt zone (locally peaty at top) in the upper part of the principal ground-water reservoir. The fractures range in length from several feet to more than 100 feet (30 m), and their maximum measured depth in 1972 was 4 feet (1.2 m). Land subsidence in the Milford area is demonstrated by three lines of evidence: (1) collapse structures, (2) well casings that protrude higher above the land surface than when first placed in the borehole, and (3) lower elevations at National Ocean Survey (formerly U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey) bench marks in 1970 than in 1908. This evidence shows that land subsidence in the Milford area is of two types, each having a different origin. One type has a near-surface origin in the clay-silt zone in the upper part of the principal groundwater reservoir, and the other is in the lower artesian aquifers of the principal ground-water reservoir. The amount of observed subsidence ranges from 0.05 foot (0.015 m) at the bench mark at Read to about 6 feet (1.8 m) at collapse structures in the Hay Springs area.

Utah↗
USGS2004

Use of chemical and isotopic tracers to assess nitrate contamination and ground-water age, Woodville Karst Plain, USA

Concerns regarding ground-water contamination in the Woodville Karst Plain have arisen due to a steady increase in nitrate-N concentrations (0.25-0.90 mg/l) during the past 30 years in Wakulla Springs, a large regional discharge point for water (9.6 m3/s) from the Upper Floridan aquifer (UFA). Multiple isotopic and chemical tracers were used with geochemical and lumped-parameter models (exponential mixing (EM), dispersion, and combined exponential piston flow) to assess: (1) the sources and extent of nitrate contamination of ground water and springs, and (2) mean transit times (ages) of ground water. Delta 15N-NO3 values (1.7-13.8???) indicated that nitrate in ground water originated from localized sources of inorganic fertilizer and human/animal wastes. Nitrate in spring waters (??15N-NO3=5.3-8.9???) originated from both inorganic and organic N sources. Nitrate-N concentrations (<0.02-16 mg/l) were highly variable both spatially and vertically in the oxic UFA, based on water samples from 46 wells and four springs collected from 1997 to 2000. During high-flow conditions, spring waters had decreased nitrate and increased DOC concentrations that resulted from mixtures of 20-95% surface water. Although higher nitrate-N concentrations (>1.0 mg/l) were associated with shallow wells (open intervals less than 15 m below land surface), elevated nitrate concentrations in deeper wells are consistent with mixtures of water from shallow and deep zones in the UFA as indicated from geochemical mixing models and the distribution of mean transit times (5-90 years) estimated using lumped-parameter flow models. Ground water with mean transit times of 10 years or less tended to have higher dissolved organic carbon concentrations, lower dissolved solids, and lower calcite saturation indices than older waters, indicating mixing with nearby surface water that directly recharges the aquifer through sinkholes. Significantly higher values of pH, magnesium, dolomite saturation index, and phosphate in springs and deep water (>45 m) relative to a shallow zone (<45 m) were associated with longer ground-water transit times (50-90 years). Chemical differences with depth in the aquifer result from deep regional flow of water recharged through low permeability sediments (clays and clayey sands of the Hawthorn Formation) that overlie the UFA upgradient from the karst plain.

Journal of Hydrology↗
USGS2002

Groundwater recharge and agricultural contamination

Agriculture has had direct and indirect effects on the rates and compositions of groundwater recharge and aquifer biogeochemistry. Direct effects include dissolution and transport of excess quantities of fertilizers and associated materials and hydrologic alterations related to irrigation and drainage. Some indirect effects include changes in water–rock reactions in soils and aquifers caused by increased concentrations of dissolved oxidants, protons, and major ions. Agricultural activities have directly or indirectly affected the concentrations of a large number of inorganic chemicals in groundwater, for example NO 3 – , N 2 , Cl, SO 4 2– , H + , P, C, K, Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba, Ra, and As, as well as a wide variety of pesticides and other organic compounds. For reactive contaminants like NO 3 – , a combination of chemical, isotopic, and environmental-tracer analytical approaches might be required to resolve changing inputs from subsequent alterations as causes of concentration gradients in groundwater. Groundwater records derived from multi-component hydrostratigraphic data can be used to quantify recharge rates and residence times of water and dissolved contaminants, document past variations in recharging contaminant loads, and identify natural contaminant-remediation processes. These data indicate that many of the world's surficial aquifers contain transient records of changing agricultural contamination from the last half of the 20th century. The transient agricultural groundwater signal has important implications for long-term trends and spatial heterogeneity in discharge.

Hydrogeology Journal↗
USGS2018

Sampling the stream landscape: Improving the applicability of an ecoregion-level capture probability model for stream fishes

Temporal and spatial variability in streams result in heterogeneous gear capture probability (i.e., the proportion of available individuals identified) that confounds interpretation of data used to monitor fish abundance. We modeled tow-barge electrofishing capture probability at multiple spatial scales for nine Ozark Highland stream fishes. In addition to fish size, we identified seven reach-scale environmental characteristics associated with variable capture probability: stream discharge, water depth, conductivity, water clarity, emergent vegetation, wetted width–depth ratio, and proportion of riffle habitat. The magnitude of the relationship between capture probability and both discharge and depth varied among stream fishes. We also identified lithological characteristics among stream segments as a coarse-scale source of variable capture probability. The resulting capture probability model can be used to adjust catch data and derive reach-scale absolute abundance estimates across a wide range of sampling conditions with similar effort as used in more traditional fisheries surveys (i.e., catch per unit effort). Adjusting catch data based on variable capture probability improves the comparability of data sets, thus promoting both well-informed conservation and management decisions and advances in stream-fish ecology.

Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma↗
USGS2020

Well predictive performance of play-wide and Subarea Random Forest models for Bakken productivity

In recent years, geologists and petroleum engineers have struggled to clearly identify the mechanisms that drive productivity in horizontal, hydraulically-fractured oil wells producing from the middle member of the Bakken formation. This paper fills a gap in the literature by showing how this play’s heterogeneity affects factors that drive well productivity. It is important because understanding the relative strength of productivity drivers and how predictors vary spatially facilitates best-practices for well site selection and well completion design. The paper describes an application of the Random Forest (RF) machine learning technique to identify these mechanisms and to evaluate their importance across 9 subareas of the North Dakota portion of the Bakken play. The study examined productivity of 7311 wells initiating production from 2010 through 2017. Well productivity varied considerably across the 9 subareas within the play, so it was not surprising that the dominant predictors, the initial 180-day water cut and the 30-day initial gas production, vary spatially to mirror local conditions that strongly affect well productivity. The relative importance of well completion predictor variables, that is, the numbers of fractures stages per well, volume of injected proppant per stage, volume of injected fluids per stage, and lateral length, varied considerably across the subareas. Statistical permutation tests are presented that generally confirm the importance rankings. Subarea Random Forest models explained from 50 percent to 82 percent of the variation in productivity test samples while the play-wide model explained 73 percent of the test sample well productivity. Weakness in the predictive ability of the Random Forest models are traced to the limited variability in the training data. Implications of the empirical findings regarding the Bakken play for operators and for research and government institutions are discussed in the concluding section.

Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota↗
USGS2012

Interpretation of changes in water level accompanying fault creep and implications for earthquake prediction

Quantitative calculations for the effect of a fault creep event on observations of changes in water level in wells provide an approach to the tectonic interpretation of these phenomena. For the pore pressure field associated with an idealized creep event having an exponential displacement versus time curve, an analytic expression has been obtained in terms of exponential-integral functions. The pore pressure versus time curves for observation points near the fault are pulselike; a sharp pressure increase (or decrease, depending on the direction of propagation) is followed by more gradual decay to the normal level after the creep event. The time function of the water level change may be obtained by applying the filter—derived by A. G. Johnson and others to determine the influence of atmospheric pressure on water level—to the analytic pore pressure versus time curves. The resulting water level curves show a fairly rapid increase (or decrease) and then a very gradual return to normal. The results of this analytic model do not reproduce the steplike changes in water level observed by Johnson and others. If the procedure used to obtain the water level from the pore pressure is correct, these results suggest that steplike changes in water level are not produced by smoothly propagating creep events but by creep events that propagate discontinously, by changes in the bulk properties of the region around the well, or by some other mechanism. In addition, simplistic calculations show that significant pressure field variations and water level changes near the surface may be expected to accompany a propagating creep event on a buried fault. Water level changes of as much as several meters may be expected at the surface for a creep event having a dislocation amplitude of l m on a semi-infinite dislocation surface extending downward from a depth of 10 km and propagating horizontally at a rate of 10 km/day. The maximum near-surface effect should be observed at a horizontal distance from the fault about equal to the depth of the top of the dislocation surface. These results are consistent with the observations made in China of large water level changes preceding large earthquakes, if some sort of aseismic creep event at depth precedes these earthquakes.

Journal of Geophysical Research Solid Earth↗
USGS1976

Fracturing and subsidence of the land surface caused by the withdrawal of ground water in the Milford area, Utah

Fracturing and subsidence of the land surface in the Milford area of Utah have resulted from the decline of water levels due to pumping in unconsolidated deposits of Quaternary age. To the writers' knowledge, these are the first such effects of ground-water withdrawal reported in Utah. The fracturing is in an area about 1 mile (1.6 km) wide and 11 miles (18 km) long near Milford, in an unsaturated clay-silt zone (locally peaty at top) in the upper part of the principal ground-water reservoir. The fractures range in length from several feet to more than 100 feet (30 m), and their maximum measured depth in 1972 was 4 feet (1.2 m). Land subsidence in the Milford area is demonstrated by three lines of evidence: (1) collapse structures, (2) well casings that protrude higher above the land surface than when first placed in the borehole, and (3) lower elevations at National Ocean Survey (formerly U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey) bench marks in 1970 than in 1908. This evidence shows that land subsidence in the Milford area is of two types, each having a different origin. One type has a near-surface origin in the clay-silt zone in the upper part of the principal groundwater reservoir, and the other is in the lower artesian aquifers of the principal ground-water reservoir. The amount of observed subsidence ranges from 0.05 foot (0.015 m) at the bench mark at Read to about 6 feet (1.8 m) at collapse structures in the Hay Springs area.

Utah↗