Groundwater

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Interesting question! Let's take a closer look through discussion, example and attached diagrams for illustrative purposes.

RESPONSE:

1. Briefly describe each feature associated with groundwater: water table, aquifer, well, cave, karst topography, and geothermal energy. Describe the characteristics of each feature and how it is related to groundwater. I am not understanding the process can anyone provide some insight into this.

Groundwater is not confined to only a few channels or depressions in the same way that surface water is concentrated in streams and lakes. Rather, it exists almost everywhere underground. It is found underground in the spaces between particles of rock and soil, or in crevices and cracks in rock (http://www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/nature/grdwtr/e_what.htm).

Briefly, each feature is related to the groundwater, either through its impact on the increase (e.g., aquifer) or decrease (e.g., well) of water, or how the groundwater amount impacts the feature (e.g., increases or decreases water table) itself, or how the features impacts the groundwater in other ways (e.g. geothermal energy, karst).

Now, let's expand on these ideas.

A. WATER TABLE

Many terms are used to describe the nature and extent of the groundwater resource. The level below which all the spaces are filled with water is called the water table. Above the water table lies the unsaturated zone. Here the spaces in the rock and soil contain both air and water. Water in this zone is called soil moisture. The entire region below the water table is called the saturated zone, and water in this saturated zone is called groundwater (http://www.ec.gc.ca/water/en/nature/grdwtr/e_what.htm).

B. AQUIFER

Although groundwater exists everywhere under the ground, some parts of the saturated zone contain more water than others. An aquifer is an underground formation of permeable rock or loose material, which can produce useful quantities of water when tapped by a well. Aquifers come in all sizes. They may be small, only a few hectares in area, or very large, underlying thousands of square ...