Chapter 15 - Accumulation Zones and Fault Intersections

Abstract

Topography in many ways controls gravity-driven overland and intrasoil transport of water. At the same time, valley networks, determining principal routes of overland flows, often can be connected with fault networks, which serve as pathways for upward transport of groundwater. For tectonic regions, it was established that topographically expressed zones of flow accumulation, as a rule, coincide with sites of fault intersections because of increased rock fracturing. In this chapter, we analyze relationships between zones of flow accumulation and natural phenomena a priori associated with fault intersections (i.e., sites of intensive rock fracturing and springs/boreholes with abnormally high discharges). The analysis was performed for the Crimean Peninsula, where it was found that the phenomena under study are spatially correlated with the location of accumulation zones. This testifies that in accumulation zones, soil moisture depends on both upward transport of deep groundwater and accumulation of overland lateral water flows. In other words, topographically expressed accumulation zones–fault intersections are areas of contact and interaction between overland and deep substance flows.