Chapter 11 Flashcards
What is Groundwater?
Water that is directly underground in cracks and crevices.
What is the unsaturated zone?
The zone just above the water table that is not completely saturated.
What is a rocks Porosity?
The percentage of a rocks volume that is taken up by openings.
What does a rocks Permeability refer to?
The capacity of a rock to transmit a fluid such as water or petroleum.
What is a perched water table
A water table that is seperate from the main water table usually above.
What is an unconfined aquifer?
Were the top of the aquifer is the water table and it doesn’t have a cap.
What is a confined aquifer?
Usually deeper inside the earth and the water is confined by beds in the crust.
Shale is often referred to as what?
Aquitard
What is recharge when talking about wells?
The addition of new water to an aquifer or to the zone of saturation.
What is a cone of depression?
A depression of the water table formed around a well when water is pumped out; it is shaped like an inverted cone.
What is drawdown and what are its effects on ground water?
The lowering of the water table near a pumped well. It tends to change the direction of groundwater blow by changing the slope of the water table.
What is an artesian well?
A well in which the water rises above the aquifer.
What is a spring?
A place where water flows naturally out of rock onto the land surface.
What is a gaining stream?
A stream that receives water from the zone of saturation.
What is a losing stream?
A stream that loses water to the saturated zone.
What is Salt Water Intrusion?
When a well is drilled near the sea and water is pumped out and eventually the fresh groundwater is depleted and salt water mixes with the freshwater.
What is dripstone or Speleothems?
Dripstone deposit of calcite that precipitates from dripping water in caves.
What is a Stalactite?
A dripstone that forms in the shape of an ice cycle.
What is a stalagmite?
A cone shaped mass of dripstone that forms on the floor of a cave usually below a stalactite.
What is a Karst topography?
An area with many sinkholes and acave system beneath the land surface and usually lacking a surface stream.
What does petrafied wood have to do with Groundwater?
Petrified Wood forms as the organic matter of buried wood is either filled in or replaced by inorganic silica carried in by ground water.
What is concretion?
Hard, rounded mass that develops when a considerable amount of cementing material precipitates locally in a rock, often around an organic nucleus.
What is Travertine around a hot spring?
A deposit of calcite that often forms around hot spring
