Water from low‐permeability sediments and land subsidence

Abstract

Seepage pressures are part of the neutral or nondeformative stresses acting in a groundwater basin. The reduction of these pressures gives rise to a stress transfer from neutral to effective. The increase in effective stresses is, exclusively responsible for measurable deformations of the land surface. The amount of land subsidence or groundwater recovery from compressible confining layers depends upon the specific storage of the strata and the average head change within them. Expressions for the specific storage are obtained from both consolidation theory and conservation principles of compressible flow. Average head changes are identified on a depth‐pressure diagram in terms of head changes in adjacent aquifers and are referred to as ‘effective‐pressure areas.’ The geometry of the effective‐pressure area is shown to depend upon the thickness of the compressible strata, the magnitude of artesian pressure decline, the manner in which the basin is developed, and time. These factors are embodied in equations that quantitatively describe the release of stored water from compressible confining layers resulting from their vertical compression in areas of land subsidence.

Rapid field application of hydraulic tomography for resolving aquifer heterogeneity in unconsolidated sediments

“…For each representative lithological unit, measurements were performed in the laboratory providing porosity, as well as hydraulic conductivity (hydrofacies classification). The specific storage values, assigned to each hydrofacies group were taken from data reported in literature [Domenico and Mifflin, 1965]. Maji and Sudicky [2008] interpolated between the six profiles and translated the gathered information into a 3-D hydraulic parameter distribution.…”

Direct simulation of fluid‐solid mechanics in porous media using the discrete element and lattice‐Boltzmann methods

“…[22] Consolidation of saturated porous media was first examined by Terzaghi [1925Terzaghi [ , 1943 and later applied to many problems in geomechanics and hydrogeology [e.g., Domenico and Mifflin, 1965]. In Terzaghi's formulation of 1-D consolidation, a sudden stress of s o is applied on the surface of a finite length fluid-saturated porous medium with an impermeable bottom boundary.…”

Hydrogeology and simulation of groundwater flow and analysis of projected water use for the Canadian River alluvial aquifer, western and central Oklahoma

“…Horizontal hydraulic conductivity for the underlying bedrock units was estimated by using values from Morris and Johnson (1967) to assign a uniform horizontal hydraulic conductivity of 0.2 ft/d for the bedrock units, which consisted predominantly of fine sandstone. At the time this report was written (2016), no publications were available describing multiwell aquifer tests in the Canadian River alluvial aquifer; therefore, a specific storage value of 0.0001 -1 was chosen from Domenico and Mifflin (1965), and a specific yield for each lithology category was chosen from Morris and Johnson (1967). The specificyield values chosen were 6 percent for clay/silt deposits, 33 percent for fine sand, 32 percent for medium sand, 30 percent for coarse sand, and 28 percent for fine gravel.…”

“…Vertical anisotropy was set to 3.0 for layer 1 and 5.0 for layer 2, as described by Todd (1980). Specific storage was set to 0.0001 ft -1 and specific yield was set to 20 percent for layer 2, as described by Domenico and Mifflin (1965).…”