5 Environmental Geochemistry and Health Impacts (Posters)

This session welcomes research on contaminant occurrence, fate and transport, and impacts on human and environmental health. Interdisciplinary contributions with implications for environmental remediation and natural resources management are encouraged.

Monday, 18 May 2026
8:00 AM - 5:30 PM
Alvarado D/E

An Investigation of the Source Water and Subterranean Flow Paths of the Black River near Carlsbad, NM

Paper number: 5-4
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:00 AM – 8:00 AM

Authors

Abstract

The Black River is a perennial and partially subterranean stream east of the Guadalupe Mountains  in southeast NM. Southeastern New Mexico has a semi-arid to arid climate and water is a limited resource. The Black River is home to several threatened or endangered species and provides an important riparian habitat for birds. The Black River flows through the Permian Castile Formation, which is a series of evaporite deposits with numerous hypogene and epigene karst features. The Black River becomes visible at the surface as several disconnected pools, but moving downstream, the pools get larger and more connected until the water becomes a continuous stream at the surface through the sampled reach. This portion of the Black River is a recreational area managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The Bureau of Land Management Carlsbad Field Office is collaborating with the U.S. Geological Survey to better understand the source of the water to the Black River including where and how far it travels underground, and the quality of the water. Water quality, solids geochemistry, and geophysical data are being combined for this study to provide a more complete understanding of the groundwater and surface-water interactions and flow paths along the middle reaches of the Black River. In April of 2025, the U.S. Geological Survey NM Water Science Center began sampling for water quality at eight sites along the Black River. Results indicate substantial differences in temperature, pH, specific conductance, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, alkalinity, total dissolved solids, and dissolved arsenic, bromide, chloride, boron, magnesium, and sulfate between the different pools and the continuous stream channel. Bromide, chloride, and boron are considered conservative trace elements because they do not readily adsorb to other particles, making them ideal environmental tracers when they are present. Principal Component Analysis was performed for dissolved constituents, identifying three distinct endmembers between the sites. Eigenvectors for PC1 show that fluoride, arsenic, lithium, boron, potassium, magnesium, bromide, sulfate, and total dissolved solids approach horizontal and therefore account for the largest variance of the data in this direction. Eigenvectors for PC2 show that inorganic carbon and bicarbonate are nearly vertical and account for the largest variance of the data in this direction.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 58, No. 4

doi: 10.1130/abs/2026RM-410604

© Copyright 2026 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.