DESIGN AND OPERATION OF A HYDROGEOLOGY FIELD CAMP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

Starting in the summer of 1995 the Department of Geology & Geophysics began a field hydrogeology course as part of a Geofluids program funded by the NSF. We have since trained 179 students in the skills of field data collection and analysis.

The field site we have developed started within a USGS study area around Williams Lake near Akeley, Minnesota that includes a network of over 50 wells within a 2-mile radius of our field site. In 1995 we installed a fully penetrating pumping well and three monitoring wells into a 40-foot thick glacial outwash aquifer. Since that time the field site has expanded to include 11 monitoring wells, a sentinel well and the original pumping well. There are two nests of monitoring wells screened at the water table, at a middle depth and near the base of the aquifer.

Traditional study areas include grain-size analysis, permeameter measurements, slug testing, multi-well pump tests and water table mapping. Additional study areas include well construction, surveying, water sampling and chemical analysis and lake-groundwater interactions. The field course is designed to provide hands on training with a grounding in theoretical analysis for future hydrogeologists.