Abstract
Carbonate rock sequences commonly provide significant quantities of groundwater but the term ‘aquifer’ is potentially misleading when applied to these sequences because, in common usage, it implies a single body of groundwater in which water moves down a hydraulic gradient towards a specific surface outlet. Such aquifers are often modelled as an equivalent porous medium (EPM) in which the outlet is assumed to be a seepage face. These conditions rarely apply in carbonate rock sequences due to the development by dissolution of channel networks. In a ∼8 km2 block of carbonate rocks around the town of Buxton (United Kingdom) the degree of interconnectedness of the channel networks discharging at springs and intersected at wells varies to such an extent that there is clearly no single aquifer and it would be impossible to model the carbonate block as a simple EPM aquifer.
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Gunn, J. (2010). Is the Term ‘Karst Aquifer’ Misleading?. In: Andreo, B., Carrasco, F., Durán, J., LaMoreaux, J. (eds) Advances in Research in Karst Media. Environmental Earth Sciences. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12486-0_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12486-0_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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