Ground-water hydraulics of the deep-basin brine aquifer, Palo Duro Basin, Texas panhandle

Conference · Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1985 · Geol. Soc. Am., Abstr. Programs; (United States)

OSTI ID:6347944

Smith, D A

The Deep-Basin Brine aquifer of the Palo Duro Basin (Texas Panhandle) underlies thick Permian bedded evaporites that are being evaluated as a potential high-level nuclear waste isolation repository. Potentiometric surface maps of 5 units of the Deep-Basin Brine aquifer were drawn using drill-stem test (DST) pressure data, which were analyzed by a geostatistical technique (kriging) to smooth the large variation in the data. The potentiometric surface maps indicate that the Deep-Basin Brine aquifer could be conceptually modeled as 5 aquifer units; a Lower Permian (Wolfcamp) aquifer, upper and lower Pennsylvanian aquifers, a pre-Pennsylvanian aquifer, and a Pennsylvanian to Wolfcampian granite-wash aquifer. The hydraulic head maps indicate that ground-water flow in each of the units is west to east with a minor northerly component near the Amarillo Uplift, the northern structural boundary of the basin. The Wolfcamp potentiometric surface indicates the strongest component of northerly flow. Inferred flow direction in Pennsylvanian aquifers is easterly, and in the pre-Pennsylvanian aquifer near its pinch-out in the basin center, flow is inferred to be to the north. In the granite-wash aquifer the inferred flow direction is east across the northern edge of the basin and southeast along the Amarillo Uplift.

• Research Organization: Univ. of Texas, Austin (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6347944
• Report Number(s): CONF-8510489-
• Journal Information: Geol. Soc. Am., Abstr. Programs; (United States), Vol. 17; Conference: 98. annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, Orlando, FL, USA, 28 Oct 1985
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
58 GEOSCIENCES
AQUIFERS
HYDROLOGY
GROUND WATER
FLOW MODELS
PALO DURO BASIN
RADIOACTIVE WASTE FACILITIES
SITE CHARACTERIZATION
BRINES
EVAPORITES
MAPPING
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
PERMIAN PERIOD
RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL
RADIOACTIVE WASTES
SALT DEPOSITS
TEXAS
FEDERAL REGION VI
GEOLOGIC AGES
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
MANAGEMENT
MATERIALS
NORTH AMERICA
NUCLEAR FACILITIES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PALEOZOIC ERA
PERMIAN BASIN
RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS
ROCKS
SEDIMENTARY ROCKS
USA
WASTE DISPOSAL
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTES
WATER
052002* - Nuclear Fuels- Waste Disposal & Storage
580100 - Geology & Hydrology- (-1989)