Water Smarts 2002

• Year: 2002
• Title: Water Smarts
• Author: Upper Arkansas Area COG USGS Pueblo Office
• Description: A well and septic system owner's guide to ground water in the upper arkansas area chaffee, custer, fremont, and lake counties, Colorado
• Publications - Doc Type: Other

Definitions
The following definitions describe the meanings of terms, which are used in this booklet and with which the
reader may not be familiar.
Acid -mine drainage
Acidic water forms through the chemical reaction
of water with rock containing sulfide minerals (such
as pyrite) forming sulfuric acid. The acid leaches
heavy metals from the mineralized rock and keeps
the metals dissolved in water. This acid rock
drainage can adversely impact aquatic life and
human health if it mixes with water supplies.
Aquifer
A geologic formation, part of a formation, or group
of formations, that will yield usable quantities to a
well or a spring.
Confining unit (bed)
A geologic formation, part of a formation, or group
of formations, whose hydraulic conductivity may
range from nearly zero to some value distinctly
lower than that of the aquifer that it confines.
Corrosivity
Refers to the aggressiveness of water. This is in
part a function of how acidic the water is. The EPA
defines "corrosive" as, " A chemical agent that
reacts with the surface of a material causing it to
deteriorate or wear away."
Fault
A fracture or a zone of fractures along which there
has been displacement of the sides relative to one
another parallel to the fracture.
Fracture
A crack or break in a rock formation due to
structural stresses. Fractures are often the result of
the natural process at work when the mountains
were formed (i.e., folding and faulting). Fractures
may or may not hold ground water.
Ground water
The water found beneath the Earth's surface at
pressure equal to or greater than atmospheric
pressure.
Unconfined ground water has a water table.
Confined ground water is under pressure
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significantly greater than atmospheric, and its upper
limit is the bottom of a bed of distinctly lower
hydraulic conductivity than that of the material in
which confined water occurs.
Hydraulic conductivity
The property of a porous medium, which allows
water to flow through it. It is analogous to
electrical conductivity.
Igneous rocks
Said of a rock or mineral that solidified from
molten or partly molten material. These include
intrusive igneous rocks, such as granite, and
extrusive rocks, such as volcanic rocks.
Metamorphic rocks
Any rock derived from pre- existing rocks by
mineralogical, chemical, and /or structural changes,
in response to marked changes in temperature,
pressure, and chemical environment, generally at
depth in the Earth's crust.
Overburden
The loose soil, silt, sand, gravel, and other
unconsolidated material overlying bedrock, either
transported or formed in place (regolith).
Sedimentary rocks
A rock resulting from the consolidation of loose
sediment that has accumulated in layers, consisting
of mechanically formed fragments of pre- existing
rock transported from its source and deposited in
water or from air or ice, or formed by precipitation
from solution, or consisting of the remains or
secretions of plants and animals.
Unconsolidated material
A sediment that is loosely arranged or unstratified,
or whose particles are not cemented together.
Water table
That surface in an unconfined water body at which
the pressure is atmospheric.