Hydrogeology Field Teaching & Research Sites

The Hydrogeology Research Group has been the driving force behind development of two hydrogeology field teaching and research sites. The first site was developed at Camp Wood near the town of White Sulphur Springs in West Virginia. The Camp Wood facility is home base for a 3 ½ week undergraduate Geology Field Camp (Geol. 440) taught annually by UT and West Virginia University. In 1995 a well field consisting initially of two 12 cm diameter pumping wells and four 5 cm diameter observation, was constructed in a 6 m thick layer of coarse-grained alluvium adjacent to Anthony Creek (Figure 1). Additional monitoring wells were installed several years later. The well field is used for a series of student exercises on water table mapping (Figure 2), flow net construction, aquifer pumping tests (Figure 3) and groundwater contamination sampling and monitoring. These exercises are followed by an introduction to fractured/karstic flow systems, and their influence on fresh-water and mineral springs. This includes visiting a large fresh-water spring, which is the main water supply for the town of White Sulphur Springs, and visiting the famous mineral springs at the historic Greenbrier Resort. An article on the hydrogeology teaching site was recently published in the Journal of Geoscience Education.

The second field teaching site, referred to as the Environmental Hydrology and Geophysics Teaching and Research Site, is being developed at the UT Plant Science Farm, located about 3 km south of the main campus. Participants in site development include the Dept. of Geological Sciences, Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the Knoxville Experiment Station. So far, 8 wells from 2-12 m deep, have been constructed in alluvial sand and silt adjacent to the Tennessee River (Figure 4). An additional 3 wells (up to 30 m deep) have been installed in the underlying fractured shale and limestone bedrock, and a permanent soil moisture/soil tension monitoring nest has been installed in the shallow soil horizons. The site is used for upper level and graduate hydrogeology field/lab courses (Geol 486 and 586) and for a variety of courses in engineering. These exercises include describing fractures in core from the boreholes and then carrying out pumping and slug tests in the wells to determine which fractures are hydraulically-conductive (Figure 5). In spring 1999, steel drums, scrap non-ferrous metals, and other materials were buried in shallow pits across the site, to act as a simulated waste disposal site (Figure 6). Students enrolled in a 2-week geophysics field course (a module within Geol. 440) used a variety of electrical, magnetic, ground-penetrating-radar, and seismic methods to identify the locations and contents of the waste pits and to define the stratigraphy of the site. The site is initially intended for teaching field courses, but the facilities are also well-suited to carrying out flow and tracer experiments for research purposes.

Recent publications and theses resulting from this research include:

• McKay, L.D., and T.W. Kammer, Incorporating hydrogeology in a mapping based field camp, Journal of Geoscience Education, 47, 124-130, 1999.