Field Hydrology Teaching and Research Site
The field site is at the UT Plant Science Farm, approximately 3 miles from the main UT campus. The site is located on adjacent to the Tennessee River and is underlain by approximately 40 feet of alluvium on top of fractured shale bedrock. Students helped supervise the drilling of 12 wells at the site, with 3 in the surficial silts, 5 in a semi-confined sand aquifer, 1 in a basal clay layer, and 3 in the bedrock. The wells are used for aquifer pump tests, potentiometric surface monitoring, geochemical sampling and tracer experiments. Nearby field sites are used for collecting soil and saprolite samples in test pits for subsequent laboratory study.