Evidence for deep groundwater flow and convective heat transport in mountainous terrain, Delta County, Colorado, USA

Abstract

The Tongue Creek watershed lies on the south flank of Grand Mesa in western Colorado, USA and is a site with 1.5 km of topographic relief, heat flow of 100 mW/m2, thermal conductivity of 3.3 W m–1 °C–1, hydraulic conductivity of 10-8 m/s, a water table that closely follows surface topography, and groundwater temperatures 3–15°C above mean surface temperatures. These data suggest that convective heat transport by groundwater flow has modified the thermal regime of the site. Steady state three-dimensional numerical simulations of heat flow, groundwater flow, and convective transport were used to model these thermal and hydrological data. The simulations provided estimates for the scale of hydraulic conductivity and bedrock base flow discharge within the watershed. The numerical models show that (1) complex three-dimensional flow systems develop with a range of scales from tens of meters to tens of kilometers; (2) mapped springs are frequently found at locations where contours of hydraulic head indicate strong vertical flow at the water table, and; (3) the distribution of groundwater temperatures in water wells as a function of surface elevation is predicted by the model.