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17 Cards in this Set

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  • Back
What is evapotranspiration?
When water is sucked up by plants and then evaporates.
How does the weathering of the rock vary going from the surface down to the underlying bedrock?
lower layers are increasingly less weathered
What is porosity?
measures the percent of open volume in a rock
What is permeability?
dictates how fast it flows underground.

Depends on how interconnected the pore spaces are.
What rock types normally have the highest porosity and permeability? The least?
Aquifiers = high (sediment, volcanic)

Aquitards = low (intrusive igneous,metamorphic)
What is an aquifier, aquitard?
aquifier = sediment or rock units that yield useful volumes of water

aquitard = units that tend to block the flow of water
What is secondary porosity?
fractures; open spaces created by dissolution
Unconfined and confined aquifiers...
unconfined = exposed at their top surface

confined = found underneath aquitards
What is the difference between the unsaturated and saturated zones?
the shallowest soil/rock/sediment (air in pores) is unsaturated, below this is the saturated zones with groundwater filling all pore spaces.

Their boundary is the water table.
What is a perched water table?
Sideways flow of water is slow enough compared to vertical infiltration that a lens of water is maintained on top of the shales.
What is a potentiometric surface?
Water pressure surface.
Nonflowing vs flowing artestian well
if well head is above the water pressure surface = nonflow.

well head below = flowing
Springs form...
where the flow path of groundwater either intersects the surface or is forced up to the surface.
Why do caves form in limestone? At what levels do large horizontal cave systems form?
the water that soaks into the ground dissolves the limestone located along the walls of joints and fractures.

Just below the water table.
Why do sinking streams sink? Why do sinkholes form?
As caves expand, the surface landscape develops distinctive features termed 'karst'

removal of soil or bedrock, often both, by water.
What is a cone of depression? What causes it to enlarge? What happens if it gets too broad?
1.If wells are pumped out too fast for the local aquifier; the elevation of the water drops around the well head.

2.Heavy usage

3. Whole water table will drop.
What happened to the aquifiers under New Orleans, Houston, and Venice after was pumped out faster than recharge? How does this affect future yields? How has this affected their future security?
NO sunk 2m, Houston 1-2m, Venice below sea level.

Permanently destroys its capacity.

Increases the risk of flooding during storms or high tides.