Aquifers

Aquifers

By Caleb Fowler

Introduction

 Aquifers and are some of the cleanest water sources known to humans.

When I went on a family trip to Pedernales Falls I discovered what I thought was a spring.  I wondered where it came from.  My dad told me it might come from an aquifer. This made me want to know more about aquifers.  I wanted to learn what an aquifer is, how it works and how it gets polluted. 

 What is an aquifer?

 Aquifers are natural resources made of rock, sand, dirt, gravel and water, hidden below the surface of the earth.  They yield slow flowing water. Aquifers are natural underground water purification systems.  Water goes through the small spaces, trapping the impurities. It can take thousands of years to fill an aquifer up with water.  The top of the aquifer is called the water table.  Aquifers hold 97% of earths’ fresh water supply.   Using water from an aquifer costs more to use than surface water because it’s hard to get to.  Most aquifers are used for agriculture. 

How does and aquifer work?

An aquifer works by precipitation falling to the ground in the recharge zone.  Water then follows the most porous path downward.  It squeezes through spaces and fills up the spaces between sand and dirt which filter it.  Once it reaches a solid with no permeability, it stops.  

A confined aquifer is when the water is trapped.   Unconfined is when some the water flows out of the aquifer.  Natural discharge is when water flows into surface water or is pushed up in artesian wells.  Another way water can get out is human induced discharge by drilling wells.

The main threats to aquifers are pollution or other contaminations and overuse.  Overuse is when more water is taken out of an aquifer than can fill it back up in the same amount of time.

 How does an aquifer get polluted?

 Aquifers get polluted when contaminants seep down into the aquifer.

Three kinds of pollution or contamination are point sources, non-point sources and other.  Pollutants and contaminants are things that make water impure.  Point sources are contaminations that are in specific places like roads with de-icing chemicals, abandoned waste sites, leaky landfills, car accidents, and leaky storage tanks.  Non-point sources are wider spread contaminations like overflowing salt water, acid rain, urban run off, and overgrazing of livestock.

Other things that can cause water contamination are not adding chlorine to drinking water, rocks in an aquifer not filtering the water well, and microscopic plants and animal getting in the water.

 Conclusion

 The most fun thing I did while researching aquifers was go to the “Splash into the Edwards Aquifer” exhibit at the Beverly S. Shefield Education Center at Barton Springs Pool.  My favorite thing there was the spectrophotometer.  It is a scientific tool which shines light through water found at different Austin, Texas surface water sources.  The spectrophotometer tests for phosphates and nitrates. These are two types of contaminants.  

I also learned at the exhibit that Purple Sage Elementary School is in the Lake Creek watershed and the recharge zone for the Edwards Aquifer.

This project made me want to study microscopic plants and animals.  I now think that the spring at Pedernales Falls was an artesian well from an aquifer.

Works Cited

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