Hydrology of the Ogallala aquifer in Ford County, southwestern Kansas

by Joseph M. Spinazola

Publisher: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Geological Survey, Publisher: Open-File Services Section, Western Distribution Branch, U.S. Geological Survey [distributor] in Lawrence, Kan, Denver, Colo

Written in English

Published: 1984 Pages: 58 Downloads: 749

Subjects:

Aquifers -- Kansas -- Ford County.

Edition Notes

The Physical Object
Statement	by Joseph M. Spinazola and Michael T. Dealy ; prepared in cooperation with the Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District no. 3.
Series	Water-resources investigations -- 83-4226., Water-resources investigations report -- 83-4226.
Contributions	Dealy, Michael T., Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District No. 3., Geological Survey (U.S.)
Pagination	viii, 58 p. :
Number of Pages	58
ID Numbers
Open Library	OL17830435M

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The Ogallala formation is the main rock unit of the High Plains Aquifer and is named after the town of Ogallala in southwestern Nebraska where the rock is exposed at the surface. It is comprised of clay, silt, sand and gravel that were deposited in streams that drained from the Rocky Mountains during the late Tertiary geologic time period. There are at least seven major aquifer systems in Nebraska. By far, the High Plains/Ogallala aquifer is the largest in terms of volume of water in storage and withdrawals for irrigation. Several secondary aquifers exist in areas outside of the High Plains aquifer, providing water for irrigation, municipal supplies, and domestic use in parts of far western and far eastern. An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock, rock fractures or unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt). Groundwater can be extracted using a water study of water flow in aquifers and the characterization of aquifers is called d terms include aquitard, which is a bed of low permeability along an aquifer, and aquiclude (or aquifuge. The Ogallala Aquifer which underlies much of the High Plains in the United States is one of the world’s largest aquifers and arguably one of the most important. It underlies small parts of South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, about a third of Kansas and most of Nebraska, a total area of about.

Ogallala Aquifer. Current use of groundwater from the Ogallala Aquifer exceeds the amount of recharge through natural processes, leading to substantially decreased water levels in many areas of the aquifer. Additionally, intensive agricul-tural and industrial practices in some areas threaten the water quality of this important resource. The Ogallala aquifer lies in designated groundwater basins. This allows more groundwater to be pumped, which lowers the water table, but with less risk of impairing surface water rights. In Kansas, action is taken when a junior water right well’s pumping directly impairs a senior water right well, whether it uses groundwater or surface water. The Ogallala Water CAP has led the coordination of this event, in partnership with colleagues at Texas A&M AgriLife, the Kansas Water Office, and the USDA-Agricultural Research Service-funded Ogallala Aquifer Program, with additional support provided by many other individuals and organizations from the eight Ogallala states. This website is based upon work that is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under award number , “Sustaining agriculture through adaptive management to preserve the Ogallala aquifer under a changing climate.".

The Ogallala aquifer lies under eight states from South Dakota to Texas. If it were above ground, its ,square-mile surface area would be nearly double all five Great Lakes. This report focuses on parts of the Ogallala-High Plains aquifer in western Kansas outside of Northwest Kansas Groundwater Management District No. 4 (GMD #4), Western Kansas Groundwater Management District No. 1 (GMD #1), and Southwestern Kansas Groundwater Management District No. 3 (GMD #3). Covering , miles and eight states, this aquifer has been providing water for Kansas farmers for centuries. The Ogallala was first created from the late Miocene to early Pliocene age. An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock, rock fractures or unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt) from which groundwater.

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Hydrology of the Ogallala aquifer in Ford County, southwestern Kansas by Joseph M. Spinazola Download PDF EPUB FB2

Get this from a library. Hydrology of the Ogallala aquifer in Ford County, southwestern Kansas. [Joseph M Spinazola; Michael T Dealy; Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District.

The rapid increase of ground-water withdrawal has caused concern over the future use of the Ogallala aquifer, the principal source of water in Ford County, in southwestern Kansas. Saturated portions of deposits of Tertiary and Quaternary age--excluding the Arkansas River alluvium--form the Ogallala aquifer.

Saturated thickness of the Ogallala ranged from 0 to about feet on the downthrown. Kansas Geological Survey, Constant Ave., Lawrence, KS phoneCore Library Wichita Well Sample Library. Kansas High Plains Aquifer Atlas This atlas has been created to serve as the primary gateway to the most recent graphical data available for the High Plains aquifer in Kansas.

As newer/updated data become available, this atlas will be updated. to continuously monitor water levels in the Ogallala-High Plains aquifer. 8 images. Interactive Atlas. Hydrology of the Ogallala Aquifer in Ford County, Southwestern Kansas Joseph M.

Spinazola,Michael T. Dealy — Aquifers Author: Joseph M. Spinazola,Michael T. Dealy. The Ogallala Aquifer (oh-guh-LAH-luh) is a shallow water table aquifer surrounded by sand, silt, clay, and gravel located beneath the Great Plains in the United States.

One of the world's largest aquifers, it underlies an area of approximatelysq mi (, km 2) in portions of eight states (South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas).

The Ogallala Aquifer supplies water for 20 percent of the corn, wheat, sorghum and cattle produced in the U.S.

in Grant County, Kan., Clay Scott parked his. Ogallala Aquifer. The Ogallala is one of the world’s largest aquifers. Coveringmiles and eight states, this aquifer has been providing water for Kansas farmers for centuries.

The Ogallala was first created from the late Miocene to early Pliocene age. the water requirement of many agricultural cropsThe Ogallala. The Ogallala Aquifer aquifer in this region has a very low recharge rate; resulting in very little precipitation reaching the groundwater.

Water us - ers in the southern High Plains have experienced significant declines in water levels, and consequently, increases in pump - ing Size: 1MB. Ogallala has made it possible so that states such as Nebraska and Kansas can produce large quantities of grain required to feed livestock.2 If the High Plains Aquifer were unaffected by human activities, it would be in a state of equilibrium in which natural discharge from the aquifer would be approximately equal to natural recharge to the Size: KB.

The Ogallala Aquifer provides significantly more water for users than any other aquifer in the state. The availability of this water is critical to the economy of the region, as approximately 95 percent of groundwater pumped is used for irrigated agriculture.

The Ogallala Aquifer Initiative is help-ing farmers in Colorado improve the efﬁ ciency of their irrigation systems. Producers in Kansas are using the Ogallala Aquifer Initiative to replace ﬂ ood irrigation systems. Ogallala Aquifer Initiative in the States Converting from ﬂ ood irrigation to a center pivot can result in an averageFile Size: KB.

The impact of water policy on conserving the Ogallala Aquifer in Groundwater Management District 3 (GMD3) in southwestern Kansas is analyzed using a system-level theoretical approach integrating agricultural water and land use patterns, changing climate, economic trends, and population by: 1.

The Ogallala or High Plains aquifer provides water for about 20% of the irrigated land in the United States. About 20 km3 ( million acre-feet) of water are withdrawn annually from this aquifer.

In general, recharge has not compensated for withdrawals since major irrigation development began in this region in the s.

The mining of the Ogallala has been pictured as an analogue to climate Cited by: The geologic units that make up the High Plains aquifer and the underlying bedrock units range in age from Permian to Quaternary; Figure 6 is a diagram showing the geologic age and thickness of these geologic units.

The composition of the bedrock units that underlie the High Plains aquifer includes siltstone, shale, loosely to moderately cemented clay and silt, chalk, limestone, dolomite. Recognizing the importance of the aquifer and its life-giving role in the region, K-State is a key member of the Ogallala Aquifer Initiative, a cooperative project between the USDA-ARS, Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, West Texas A&M University, and Kansas State University.

The High Plains aquifer components in Kansas are made up of the Ogallala, Great Bend Prairie, and Equus Beds regions as shown on the map below. The High Plains aquifer underlies aboutsquare miles of the central United States.

It falls east of the. Ogallala is a city in and the county seat of Keith County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 4, at the the days of the Nebraska Territory, the city was a stop on the Pony Express and later along the transcontinental Ogallala Aquifer was named after the : Keith.

Estimates of annual recharge into the Ogallala aquifer, Southern High Plains Citation Nativ, Ronit,Hydrogeology and Hydrochemistry of the Ogallala Aquifer, Southern High Plains, Texas Panhandle and Eastern New Mexico: The University of Texas at Austin, Bureau of Economic Geology, Report of Investigations No.64 : $2.

The Ogallala Aquifer: Saving a Vital U.S. Water Source Tuesday, 09 June - Last Updated Tuesday, 09 June And they did. What changed everything for Funk, now was a public meeting in the late s at Garden City Community College.

File Size: KB. Journal of Hydrology, 91 () Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam -- Printed in The Netherlands [2] HYDROGEOLOGY AND GEOCHEMISTRY OF THE OGALLALA AQUIFER, SOUTHERN HIGH PLAINS1 RONIT NATIV and D.

ANDERSON SMITH Bureau of Economic Geology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX (U.S.A.) (Received J ; revised and Cited by: The aquifer boundary in Lea County was defined by Don Hart and Doug McAda to represent the extent of the saturated zone for the Quaternary sediments in the High Plains aquifer.

U.S. Geological Survey Ogallala Aquifer Extending the life of the High Plains Aquifer. Corn producers and cattle operations in western Kansas depend largely on groundwater from the High Plains (Ogallala) Aquifer to maintain and increase production levels.

Groundwater levels are being depleted, however, and this has implications for current and future economies of the. The eastern spur of the aquifer in Kansas is not a part of the Ogallala formation and is made up of the Great Bend Prairie Aquifer and the Equus Beds aquifer.

Most of the Wyoming portion of the aquifer and the eastern and northwestern parts of the Nebraska portion, as well as the western part of the South Dakota portion, are also separate from.

Aquifer depletion in Southeast Ford County, Kansas has been well-documented by a recent report prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey and Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District #3 (Spinazola and Dealy, ). This report provides a detailed hydrologic study of the Ogallala Aquifer in Ford County and it indicates that aquifer depletion.

The High Plains Water-Level Monitoring Study (HPWLMS) is the USGS's response to a directive from Congress to report on water-level changes in the High Plains [Ogallala] aquifer.

Figure 1. Location map showing the boundary of the High Plains aquifer, major cities and roads, and altitude of land surface. According to the United States Geological Survey Report (USGS) Groundwater Depletion in the United States (–), the Ogallala Aquifer (or High Plains Aquifer) is a vital source of groundwater for a major agricultural region in the United States.

In the USGS report, there is evidence of significant and ongoing depletion of the aquifer. Summary of the hydrology of the Floridan aquifer system in Florida and in parts of Georgia Hydrology of the Ogallala aquifer in Ford County, southwestern Kansas / (Lawrence, Kan.: U.S.

Dept. of the Interior Simulated ground-water flow in the Ogallala and Arikaree aquifers, Rosebud Indian. A story of land, water, relationships and love, “The Ogallala Road” is the year history of a farming family in Kansas as well as the second of Julene Bair’s memoirs. Hydrology of the Great Plains aquifer system in Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, and adjacent areas Hydrology of the Great Plains aquifer system in Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, and adjacent areas: Series title: Professional Paper: Series number: Chapter: E: DOI: /ppE: Edition-Year Published:.

a new study says. The life of the Ogallala Aquifer could be extended several decades, but only if water usage is reduced, a four-year study by researchers from Kansas State University found.HIGH PLAINS AQUIFER.

INTRODUCTION. The High Plains aquifer underlies an area of aboutsquare miles in parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming ().Parts of the aquifer are in Segments 2, 3, 4, 8, and 9 of this Atlas; for the most part, the aquifer is within Segments 3 and 4 and is discussed in detail only in the chapters that describe.The Ogallala aquifer and the underlying White River aquifer are important ground-water resources of public and private drinking water in the Cheyenne, Wyoming area.

Inas part of a cooperative project between the Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities and the U.S. Geological Survey, a well was installed to develop information for those two.