Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Estimating The Permanent Loss Of Groundwater Storage In The Southern San Joaquin Valley, California, Ryan G. Smith, Rosemary Knight, J. Chen, J. A. Reeves, H. A. Zebker, T. Farr, Z. Liu

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In the San Joaquin Valley, California, recent droughts starting in 2007 have increased the pumping of groundwater, leading to widespread subsidence. In the southern portion of the San Joaquin Valley, vertical subsidence as high as 85 cm has been observed between June 2007 and December 2010 using Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR). This study seeks to map regions where inelastic (not recoverable) deformation occurred during the study period, resulting in permanent compaction and loss of groundwater storage. We estimated the amount of permanent compaction by incorporating multiple data sets: the total deformation derived from InSAR, estimated skeletal-specific storage and hydraulic …

Salt Dissolution And Surface Subsidence In Central Kansas: A Seismic Investigation Of The Anthropogenic And Natural Origin Models, Neil Lennart Anderson, Alex A. Martinez, John F. Hopkins, Timothy R. Carr

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Gradual subsidence in the Punkin Center study area, northeast Reno County, Kansas, has resulted in ponding of surface waters, abandonment of at least one oil well, and damage to county roads. Because the Punkin Center area is within the Burrton oil field and is underlain by the Hutchinson Salt Member, surface subsidence historically has been attributed to salt dissolution of anthropogenic origin. Subsidence that occurred significant distances from any known well sites has been attributed to unrecorded abandoned wells or complex asymmetric patterns of salt dissolution that originated at a drillhole.

To ascertain the validity of the widely accepted anthropogenic …