The Hydrology And Geochemistry Of Urban And Rural Watersheds In East-Central Missouri

This dissertation examines the physical hydrology and geochemistry of surface waters and shallow groundwaters in east-central Missouri, USA, to determine how runoff differs in flow and quality between urban and natural watersheds. The study employs high frequency in situ monitoring of relevant water quality parameters in tandem with lab analyses of major and minor elements and stable isotope concentrations to address degradation of watersheds by land development and other human activities. Chapter 3 of this dissertation compares three watersheds and their tributaries, each with differing levels of urban land use, which were monitored for more than one year to document their hydrologic and geochemical character. Urban streams were characterized by flashier responses to storm perturbations and had reduced baseflow components compared to rural streams. Rural streams had smaller hydrologic and geochemical variations, higher baseflow, and longer lag times following storm perturbations. Urban and suburban streams were commonly polluted with salts and nutrients, and chemical compositions could change rapidly. Continuous monitoring data demonstrate increased seasonal and diurnal variability in urban systems, and show that infrequent and arbitrary sampling regimes in both urban and rural systems can under- or overestimate loads by 100-fold. Chapter 4 examines regional boron: B) concentrations. In contrast to previous work that attributes B contamination of surface waters and groundwaters to wastewaters and fertilizers, this study found that the largest contributor of B to local waters was municipal drinking water used for urban lawn irrigation. Chapter 5, a comparative study of springs in east-central Missouri, establishes contaminant background levels in shallow groundwaters and quantitatively establishes that springs proximal to St. Louis and adjoining suburbs have the most degraded water quality. The impacted springs display the same water quality problems as urban surface waters including high Cl: \u3e 230 ppm), low dissolved oxygen: DO; \u3c 5 ppm), and high Escherichia coli: E. coli; \u3e 206 cfu/100 mL). In addition, the residence times for contaminants typically range from a few months to two years and approximate stable isotope residence times. Chapter 6 discusses a novel technique to determine the subterranean environment of groundwaters using field measurements of DO and pH. Springs draining vadose cave passages have higher DO and pH values than phreatic springs that have no known cave passage because of the equilibration of DO with overlying cave air and the simultaneous degassing of dissolved CO2. Degassing processes also affect the saturation state of minerals such as calcite, with cave springs having the highest degree of saturation with respect to calcite. Taken together, these chapters provide a unique archive of regional water hydrology and geochemistry, and demonstrate previously unknown sources and transport mechanisms for several chemical constituents

Modeling the Bedrock Surface in Indiana with Contouring Software

Poster Session Paper Paper No. 61-25, Geological Association of America, 2006 Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaMost contouring algorithms can quickly generate numerous surfaces that honor bedrock surface (BRS) data, but automated BRS models are often poor geologic interpretations because a single combination of contouring algorithm and gridding parameters may not work best throughout a map area. Modeling that works well where deeply incised paleovalleys are present beneath thick glacial cover break down where thin sheets of unconsolidated sediment are draped over the BRS, and vice versa. One way to overcome this problem is to subdivide a map area and apply different BRS modeling techniques (independent, dependent, or coincident) based on inferred relationships between the BRS and a digital elevation model (DEM) of the topographic surface. Independent BRS models are based on the assumption that the BRS and DEM are unrelated. These models focus on buried BRS features such as paleovalleys. Independent BRS models are made by first developing a computer-generated BRS model that honors the data and roughly outlines BRS features. Breaklines and phantom data points are added to mold the computer-generated surface into a geologic interpretation that fits the data and shows an interpretation of the shape, continuity, and connectivity of buried paleovalleys. Dependent BRS models are based on the assumption that the BRS is sub-parallel to the topographic surface. These models focus on the thickness of unconsolidated deposits that is draped over the BRS. Dependent BRS models are generated by subtracting a model of unconsolidated deposit thickness from a DEM trend surface that filters out minor DEM relief not related to the shape of the BRS. These models work best where changes in the thickness of unconsolidated deposits is gradual. The coincident BRS model is based on the assumption that the BRS and DEM are essentially equivalent. These models use DEM data as the BRS model and are employed where bedrock outcrops or where soil maps show thin soils derived from underlying bedrock. Combining areas where these models are applied yields a digital BRS that fits the data and blends BRS interpretations appropriate for various Quaternary terrains. The digital BRS is used to automate the computation of unconsolidated deposit thickness and to compute the distribution of bedrock units on a geologic map.Indiana Geological Surve

Web-based glacial and bedrock geologic map products and databases for Marion County, Indiana

This poster was presented at the 2010 meeting of the North-Central and South-Central Sections of the Geological Society of America, 44th Annual Meeting, in Branson, MO, April 11-13, 2010.The Internet has become a medium of choice for delivering geologic information to both technical users and the general public. The Indiana Geological Survey (IGS) is creating a Web-based glacial and bedrock geologic map site for Marion County in central Indiana to provide detailed geologic information needed to address environmental and resource management issues related to a growing population and land-use conflicts. Marion County is the location of Indianapolis, the state capital and largest city. The IGS anticipates that the information available via the Web site will be widely used by the general public, industry, and government entities concerned about the geology, groundwater, and other natural resources in this county. The Marion County Web site links an Internet map server (IMS) and database to provide a portal to the IGS’s enterprise geodatabases that allows users to efficiently create, manage, update, and distribute maps and data. The IMS site retrieves maps and cross sections of Marion County completed during earlier IGS mapping projects. Map layers pertaining to bedrock geology, surficial geology, hydrology, infrastructure, and imagery are included. Database information includes (1) lithologic information compiled from water-well records stored in the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Water archives, (2) natural gamma-ray geophysical log data, (3) stratigraphic test hole data, and (4) petroleum-well-record data. The development of the Web site is funded by the IGS and the Great Lakes Geologic Mapping Coalition.Great Lakes Geologic Mapping Coalitio

Web-Based Geologic Maps, Databases, and HTML Pages for Marion County, Indiana

This poster was presented at the 2011 meeting of the Indiana Academy of Science, 126th Annual Academy Meeting, March 4-5, 2011, Indianapolis, Indiana.The Indiana Geological Survey (IGS) has created an internet map server for Marion County in central Indiana. The site provides detailed geologic information needed to address environmental issues, resource management issues, and land-use conflicts related to a growing population. Marion County is the location of Indianapolis, the state capital and largest city. The IGS anticipates that the Web site will be widely used by the general public, industry, and government entities concerned about the geology, groundwater, and other natural resources. The Marion County Web site links an Internet map server (IMS) and database to provide a portal to the IGS‘s enterprise geodatabases, which allow users to efficiently create, manage, update, and distribute maps and data. The IMS site retrieves maps of bedrock and surficial geology completed during earlier IGS mapping projects. Hydrogeology, infrastructure, and imagery map layers are also included. Database information includes lithologic information (iLITH) compiled from water-well records stored in the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Water archives and natural gamma-ray geophysical log data, stratigraphic test hole data, and petroleum well-record data from the IGS. Currently, the following products are being prepared: (1) illustrated Web pages discussing the surficial geology, bedrock geology, and bedrock topography; (2) illustrated Web pages discussing digital elevation model terrain, gamma-ray log, iLITH, and clay thickness data sets; (3) online glossary; and (4) metadata for the map layers. The development of the Web site is funded by the IGS and the Great Lakes Geologic Mapping Coalition.Great Lakes Geologic Mapping Coalitio

The New Albany Shale gas play in southern Indiana

This poster was presented at the 2006 Eastern Section American Association of Petroleum Geologists, 35th Annual Meeting, in Buffalo, N.Y., October 8-11, 2006.The New Albany Shale (Devonian and Mississippian) in Indiana is mostly brownish-black organic-rich shale with lesser greenish-gray shale. The formation is 100 to 140 feet thick in southeastern Indiana and dips and thickens to the southwest into the Illinois Basin, where it attains a thickness of more than 360 feet in Posey County. Gas production from New Albany Shale began in 1885 and drilling activity continued into the 1930s, when interest waned in favor of more lucrative opportunities elsewhere. Renewed activity, driven by higher gas prices, has been brisk since the mid-1990s, witnessed by the completion of more than 400 productive wells. The majority of these wells were drilled in Harrison County, where production typically occurs at depths from 500 to 1,100 feet and production rates generally range from 20 to 450 MCFGPD. In the past 2 years, Daviess County and surrounding areas have become the focus of New Albany exploration after the El Paso Production No. 2-10 Peterson horizontal discovery well was rumored to have tested 1.3 MMCFGPD at an approximate measured depth of 2,200 feet. New Albany production is mostly from the organic-rich Clegg Creek Member. Gas compositions (C1-C4 and CO2) and carbon and hydrogen isotopic signatures indicate that both purely thermogenic and mixed thermogenic and biogenic gases are produced from the New Albany. Produced water ranges from brine to water diluted through recharge by modern precipitation; the brine zones contain primarily thermogenic gas and the diluted water zones contain gas of mixed thermogenic and biogenic origin

Developing a Web Site to Provide Geologic Data and Map Products for Allen County, Indiana

This poster was presented at the 2007 meeting of the Digital Mapping Techniques Conference in Columbia, South Carolina, May 20-23, 2007.The Internet is becoming the medium of choice for delivering geologic information to both technical users and the general public. The Indiana Geological Survey (IGS) is currently creating a Web-based glacial and bedrock geologic map site for Allen County in northeastern Indiana. Allen County is the site of Fort Wayne, Indiana’s second largest city, and lies within IGS mapping and outreach priority areas based on population density and transportation corridors. This Web site provides detailed geologic information in an area that continues to experience pressure on natural resources by a large population and expanding transportation network. It is anticipated that the information from the Web site will be widely used by the general public and by industry and government entities. The Allen County Web site includes an Internet map server (IMS), as well as illustrations, educational summaries, and discussions of geologic maps, terrain images, and databases that complement the IMS. The site provides a front-end to the IGS enterprise geodatabases, which contain information used simultaneously for research and for viewing by the general public. The geodatabase systems allow maps and data to be efficiently created, managed, updated, and distributed. Maps provided on the Allen County Web site include: (1) digital elevation model terrain, (2) Landsat imagery, (3) surficial geology, (4) drift thickness, (5) bedrock topography, (6) bedrock geology, and (7) water-table elevation. Technical database information includes: (1) lithologic information compiled from water-well information in the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Water well records, (2) natural gamma-ray geophysical log data, (3) stratigraphic test hole data, and (4) petroleum-well data. The development of the Web site was funded by the IGS and the Central Great Lakes Geologic Mapping Coalition.U.S. Geological Surve

Tracers reveal limited influence of plantation forests on surface runoff in a UK natural flood management catchment

Study region United Kingdom (UK). Study focus Natural flood management (NFM) schemes are increasingly prominent in the UK. Studies of NFM have not yet used natural tracers at catchment scale to investigate how interventions influence partitioning during storms between surface rainfall runoff and water already stored in catchments. Here we investigate how catchment properties, particularly plantation forestry, influence surface storm rainfall runoff. We used hydrograph separation based on hydrogen and oxygen isotopes (2H, 18O) and acid neutralising capacity from high flow events to compare three headwater catchments (2.4-3.1 km2) with differences in plantation forest cover (Picea sitchensis: 94%, 41%, 1%) within a major UK NFM pilot, typical of the UK uplands. New hydrological insights Plantation forest cover reduced the total storm rainfall runoff fraction during all events (by up to 11%) when comparing two paired catchments with similar soils, geology and topography but ∼50% difference in forest cover. However, comparison with the third catchment, with negligible forest cover but different characteristics, suggests that soils and geology were dominant controls on storm rainfall runoff fraction. Furthermore, differences between events were greater than differences between catchments. These findings suggest that while plantation forest cover may influence storm rainfall runoff fractions, it is not a dominant control in temperate upland UK catchments, especially for larger events. Soils and geology may exert greater influence, with implications for planning NFM

Understanding watershed hydrogeochemistry: 2. Synchronized hydrological and geochemical processes drive stream chemostatic behavior

This article is a companion to Bao et al. [2017], doi: 10.1002/2016WR018934.Why do solute concentrations in streams remain largely constant while discharge varies by orders of magnitude? We used a new hydrological land surface and reactive transport code, RT‐Flux‐PIHM, to understand this long‐standing puzzle. We focus on the nonreactive chloride (Cl) and reactive magnesium (Mg) in the Susquehanna Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory (SSHCZO). Simulation results show that stream discharge comes from surface runoff (Qs), soil lateral flow (QL), and deeper groundwater (QG), with QL contributing >70%. In the summer, when high evapotranspiration dries up and disconnects most of the watershed from the stream, Cl is trapped along planar hillslopes. Successive rainfalls connect the watershed and mobilize trapped Cl, which counteracts dilution effects brought about by high water storage (Vw) and maintains chemostasis. Similarly, the synchronous response of clay dissolution rates (Mg source) to hydrological conditions, maintained largely by a relatively constant ratio between “wetted” mineral surface area Aw and Vw, controls Mg chemostatic behavior. Sensitivity analysis indicates that cation exchange plays a secondary role in determining chemostasis compared to clay dissolution, although it does store an order‐of‐magnitude more Mg on exchange sites than soil water. Model simulations indicate that dilution (concentration decrease with increasing discharge) occurs only when mass influxes from soil lateral flow are negligible (e.g., via having low clay surface area) so that stream discharge is dominated by relatively constant mass fluxes from deep groundwater that are unresponsive to surface hydrological conditions.EAR 07‐25019EAR 12‐39285EAR 13‐3172

A Raman spectroscopic study of M2+M3+ sulfate minerals, romerite Fe2+Fe23+ (SO4)4.14H2O and botryogen Mg2+Fe3+ (SO4)2(OH).7H2O

The mixed valency (M2+M3+) sulphate minerals, römerite Fe2+Fe23+(SO4)4•14H2O and botryogen Mg2+Fe3+(SO4)2(OH).7H2O have been studied by Raman spectroscopy. The Raman spectra of the two types of crystals proved very similar but not identical. The observation of two symmetric stretching modes confirmed the presence of the two non-equivalent sulphate units in the römerite structure. The observation of multiple bands in the antisymmetric stretching region and in the bending regions proves the symmetry of the sulphate anion is significantly reduced in the römerite structure. The number of Raman bands related to the (SO4)2- symmetric and antisymmetric vibrations support the X-ray single crystal structure conclusion that two symmetrically distinct S6+ are present in the structure of botryogen. Römerite is a mineral of environmental significance as it is commonly found in tailings and dumps