MAPPING OF SPRINGS TO DETERMINE FRACTURE PATHWAYS FOR GROUNDWATER IN THE SIERRA TARAHUMARA, CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO

The objective of this ongoing hydrologic survey is to improve the success rate of the Tarahumara Children’s Hospital when drilling wells for the Tarahumara Indians in the Sierra Tarahumara volcanic tuff region of Chihuahua, Mexico, near the village of Creel. Currently wells are sited only by “water witching,” each well requires about $5000 to be raised through charity, and about half the resulting wells are dry. In October 2009, Utah Valley University students and faculty mapped 24 developed springs, 33 undeveloped springs, two producing wells, and five dry wells. This greatly expanded the data set of six developed springs, eleven producing wells, and seven dry wells, collected by UVU students and faculty the previous year. Of the 30 mapped developed springs, nine are known to produce water year-round, while the remainder become dry by the end of the dry season (winter and spring). Using these data, a map was created using ArcGIS 9.3 to indicate regions of high and low groundwater potential. The primary data for the map are the locations of springs and producing wells, which define fracture pathways for groundwater, as well as locations of dry wells, which indicate the absence of fracture pathways. The fracture pathways defined by the springs and producing wells are well-correlated with the fracture traces as seen on aerial photographs. There do not seem to be additional fracture pathways defined by springs and producing wells that cannot be correlated with fracture traces.