Abstract:
For consultants concerned with developing site-specific conceptual models for flow and transport in karst, cave information can be worth accessingAt the scale of the basin, caves often display patterns that correlate with both the flow and recharge characteristics of their aquifersCharacterization of overall basin hydrology bolsters predictions and monitoring recommendations which address the siteAlthough the presence of caves beneath or near sites is rare, site-based information such as water-table maps (under both natural and pumping conditions), well water-level fluctuations, well turbidity observations, borehole-void yields during drilling, and dye-trace results, are potentially useful in defining conduit-flow boundaries to diffuse-flow blocksThe appropriate choice of dye-tracer methods should acknowledge whether most site conduits (or borehole voids, or even caves) are within the epikarst, the vadose zone, the phreatic zone, or the oscillation zoneFor inferences on site flow directions, it is useful to compare the directional frequencies of cave passages and joints, faults, and photolinears in the areaThere is evidence that where caves are well developed, there tends to be a low correlation between photolinear locations and relatively high well yieldsLNAPL migration will be retarded where main conduits are well beneath the water table, but an extensive overlying system of saturated epikarstic pores serve as trapsKarst with high seasonal or storm variations in water level will tend to repeatedly remobilize LNAPLsGiven sufficient volume, DNAPLs can penetrate vertically integrated networks of pores, fractures, or solution conduits to great depthHowever, where such pathway networks are lie above relatively tight lithologies at shallow depth, and are not sediment filled, lateral movement can greatly exceed vertical movementCharacterization of the 3-D nature of pores and pathways is an important element in understanding the migration of free product, and therefore in understanding the evolution of associated aqueous plumes