Project Number:
DNR-142
Other Project Number:
WR98R011
Funding Year:
1998
Contract Period:
Funding Source:
DNR
Investigator(s) and affiliations:
Chad Underwood, Montgomery Watson Harza;
Michele L. Cooke, University of Massachusetts–Amherst;
J. A. Simo, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Abstract:
Background: Carbonate aquifers form important regional sources of drinking water in eastern and southern Wisconsin. Previous work in Door County suggests that vertical fractures as well as horizontal partings and dissolution zones provide the primary pathways for groundwater flow in the Silurian aquifer (Sherrill, 1978; Bradbury and Muldoon, 1992). Stratigraphic, geophysical, and hydrogeologic data were used to identify laterally continuous high-permeability zones within the Silurian dolomite in the vicinity of Sturgeon Bay (Muldoon and others, in review). While these features appear to correlate with stratigraphy, it is not clear why certain stratigraphic discontinuities (fractures) develop into regionally important high-permeability features while others do not. It is our hypothesis that the distribution of vertical fractures and the mechanical properties of the various stratigraphic units contribute to the development of these bedding-parallel high-permeability zones.