Groundwater Lab Report

12.2    (A) How many cubic kilometers of water reside within groundwater?

12.2    (B) How many more times abundant is groundwater than water on land?

12.5    So what do you suppose happened when over-pumping of the saturated zone was stopped by that other California state agency?

12.6    Can you imagine what happened when the water table rose? Hint: Asphalt and concrete are only so strong.

12.7    If, for the model in Figure 12.11, h1 were 506 ft, h2 were 497 ft, and l were 150 ft, what would be the hydraulic gradient (in percent) between well #1 and well #2?

Answer: 6 % (506 – 497)/150 = 0.06 * 100 = 6 %

12.11    If contaminants were to find their way into groundwater at Acme Industries, in which well would those contaminants be more likely to appear—the well at the Smith farmhouse, or the well at the Jones farmhouse?

12.18    Which of the six wells in Figure 12.25 in Ch. 12 should be flowing artesian wells?

12.19    In Figures 12.19A and B, two depressions are occupied by water, whereas others are dry.

(A) Explain this presence and absence of ponds in these two figures.

(B) If the two ponds were perennial (i.e., year-round) ponds, because of intersecting the water table, how would the presence or absence of water in the other depressions differ from that which is shown?

12.20    Judging from what you learned from information in Figure 12.19A in Ch. 12, how might one seal a leaking stock pond? Hint: We’re talking three steps here, with steps #1 and #2 being the draining and restoring of pond water.

12.21    Examine Figure 12.22. At a glance, several ponds might be mistaken for stock ponds. However, there is evidence indicating that the large pond at coordinates P-5 is surely a sinkhole. What is that evidence? Hint: The evidence appears in the relationship between the pond and a man-made feature.

12.25    Do water levels in these three lakes (as well as others) appear to be governed by the vagaries of spotty rainfall and random surface drainage, or do they appear to mark systematic elevations on a water table? Hint: Notice the elevations of the bottoms of dry sinkholes relative to the water levels in ponds.