Released March 8, 2010
STEVENS POINT, Wis.-- Groundwater Awareness Week, March 7-13 presents an opportunity to learn more about one of Wisconsin’s most valuable natural resources.
Because groundwater is not visible without some digging, it is often misunderstood. Common misconceptions can make it difficult to understand the real issues and manage the resource wisely.
Groundwater originates as rain and melting snow that filters into the ground. Eventually this water reaches a zone where all the empty space in-between the soil particles and cracks and spaces in the rocks beneath the soil are completely filled with water. The top of this zone is called the water table. All of the water below the water table is groundwater, while the geologic materials around it, (called aquifers) such as sand and gravel, sandstone, dolomite, or crystalline bedrock—transmit and store it.
Groundwater is always moving, generally very slowly, through the pore spaces or cracks in the rocks below us. The rate of movement depends mostly on the type of aquifer in which groundwater is contained.
--continued on University of Wisconsin Extension news
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