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The vadose zone is the undersaturated portion of the subsurface that lies above the groundwater table. The soil and rock in the vadose zone are not fully saturated with water; that is, the pores within them contain air as well as water. The portion of the vadose zone that is inhabited by soil microorganism, fungi and plant roots may sometimes ...
Water table. Cross-section of a hillslope depicting the vadose zone, capillary fringe, water table, and the phreatic or saturated zone. (Source: United States Geological Survey.) The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with groundwater ...
An aquifer is an underground layer of water -bearing material, consisting of permeable or fractured rock, or of unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt). Aquifers vary greatly in their characteristics. The study of water flow in aquifers and the characterization of aquifers is called hydrogeology. Related terms include aquitard, which ...
The Ogallala Aquifer (oh-gə-LAH-lə) is a shallow water table aquifer surrounded by sand, silt, clay, and gravel located beneath the Great Plains in the United States. As one of the world's largest aquifers, it underlies an area of approximately 174,000 sq mi (450,000 km 2) in portions of eight states (South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas). [1]
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 21 August 2024. Water located beneath the ground surface An illustration showing groundwater in aquifers (in blue) (1, 5 and 6) below the water table (4), and three different wells (7, 8 and 9) dug to reach it. Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in ...
Whatever the cause, the result has been the formation of a large and still-growing region of relatively thin crust; the region grew an average of 1 inch (2.5 cm) per year initially and then slowed to 0.3 inches (0.76 cm) per year in the last 5 million years. [17] Geologists call this region the Basin and Range Province.
In 1978, the US Geological Survey found a 350-foot decline in the level of the water table. [6] The USGS published research in 1997, examining the Pennsylvanian and Permian age sandstone, limestone and siltstone underlying Flagstaff and the southern Colorado Plateau, which forms a complex regional aquifer with poorly understood groundwater flow ...
Groundwater recharge or deep drainage or deep percolation is a hydrologic process, where water moves downward from surface water to groundwater. Recharge is the primary method through which water enters an aquifer. This process usually occurs in the vadose zone below plant roots and is often expressed as a flux to the water table surface.