Abstract

back
   Back


Automated Groundwater Hydrograph Mapping to Locate Geologic Faults
Track: Mining and Geosciences
Author(s): Kurt Zeiler

Operators of an aggregate quarry in the northern San Gabriel Basin, California, needed to evaluate groundwater elevations in the vicinity of the quarry where faults of the Sierra Madre Fault Zone are known to restrict groundwater flow. A Microsoft Access database of historical groundwater elevations was created for ninety-six wells from multiple sources. Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) scripts were developed to extract water-level data from the database, create hydrographs for each well in Microsoft Excel, and place the hydrographs on maps and aerial photos in ArcMap. Placement of hydrographs on the maps illustrated the spatial and temporal characteristics of historical water-level fluctuations and revealed striking differences in water-level elevations over small lateral distances that were used to refine previously mapped fault locations. VBA greatly improved the efficiency of producing the maps in terms of time and data accuracy.

Kurt Zeiler
Geomatrix Consultants, Inc.
1401 17th Street Suite 600
Denver , CO 80202
US
Phone: (303) 534-8722
E-mail: kzeiler@geomatrix.com