T12 Using Geologic Context to Improve Hydrogeologic Characterizations

Sunday, 22 September 2024
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
209B

ANCIENT MUDBRICK WALLS ADD COMPLEXITY TO GROUNDWATER MAPPING IN HIERAKONPOLIS TEMPLE-TOWN SITE (NEKHEN), EDFU EGYPT

Paper number: T12-10
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 10:05 AM – 10:20 AM

Authors

Abstract

Hierakonpolis >3200 BCE is a temple and town with mud brick walls and temple structures. This site has a complex living history >3200 BCE to the present. First excavation occurred in 1897-99, then in 1967-1994. M. Flinders Petrie (Father of Egyptology) 1897 praised Hierakonpolis as the most important site for early kings.

Groundwater characterization and modeling is quite complex due to multiple sources of encroaching waters. Seismic surveys to 10 cm of accuracy, measured depth to ground water, aquifer limits and artifacts.

Initial water-level contours seem simple, but as our 35+ years of data collected since 1999 are added to a GIS database, including 115 temperature holes, 146 shallow piezometers, 20 holes 10 M to 30 M deep and regional 24-deep holes in the desert, great complexity is revealed.

Normally, groundwater with similar elevations would be contoured together, however, as salinity, pH, Specific Conductance and Conductivity data are considered for each hole through time, contouring quickly becomes extremely complex, Making water table mapping difficult. This site is neither homogeneous nor isotropic within a maize of mud brick hydraulic barriers.

We are taking into account complexities of mud brick structures, pot chard clusters, Nile terraces, bedrock, local water sources as well as regional Wadi Sa’ayada land reclamation project added, sources of recharge, deep and shallow sources of water that cause pooling, salinity and chemistry differences. Together they create a problem to solve as we try to determine the sources and control of each pool of water.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 56, No. 5

doi: 10.1130/abs/2024AM-405448

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