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Ground-water supply potential and procedures for well-site selection in the upper Cape Fear River Basin

Article
By C.C. Daniel, III and N.B. Sharpless

Prepared in cooperation with the
North Carolina Department of Natural Resources and Community Development
U.S. Water Resources Council


Abstract

The regolith in the upper Cape Fear River basin, North Carolina, contains approximately 1.5 billion gallons per square mile of potentially available ground water. Storage capacity in the underlying fractured bedrock is low and decreases to nearly zero below a depth of about 400 feet. Precipitation averaging 45.9 inches per year recharges the ground-water system; about 20 percent of this amount infiltrates to the water table. A site selection procedure for locating new well sites was developed from an analysis of rock types, land forms, and drainage patterns. The mafic volcanics unit is the most productive with nearly three times as many high-yield wells as the sheared granite, porphyritic granite, felsic volcanics, mica gneiss, and diorite. High-yield wells are absent in the mica schist and argillite units. High-yield wells are most often found in draws or narrow valleys underlain by thick regolith and highly-fractured bedrock with a high water table. Drainage patterns provide clues to the presence or absence of fractured bedrock. Drilling and testing of test wells demonstrated the usefulness of site selection criteria for locating, in selected geologic units, wells with above-averaged yields penetrating zones of highly-fractured rock at sites with a high water table and thick regolith.


Citation:

Daniel, C.C., III, and Sharpless, N.B., 1983, Ground-water supply potential and procedures for well-site selection in the upper Cape Fear River Basin: North Carolina Department of Natural Resources and Community Development and U.S. Water Resources Council, 73 p.


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