Saturday 17 December 2016

Blog Update #10 - Pain and a paper

Eleanor Faith Holland
The blog has been on hold for a while. But I have always intended to keep on writing. There has been some major changes in where I live and work and most recently our lovely 6 year old daughter Eleanor passed away. There has been much pain but there is much celebration too for our special girl. My wife Becky and I are in feelings of loss. That said, we want to celebrate the life of our daughter who demonstrated so much strength in so many ways. A service will be held at St Peter’s Cathedral in Armidale at 2pm on Monday (19th December).
 
Coming to Christmas it is a subdued feeling at our home and my birthday was yesterday as well so I didn’t feel like celebrating. However, there was something I was excited to see. A confirmation that a paper that I was a co-author of has been accepted to the journal Science of the Total Environment (Santos et al 2016). I was only a minor co-author but there is something about having your name up there that caters for ones ego.

The highlights of the article are:
  • We assess groundwater recharge through a pervasive layer of floodplain muds.
  • Modelled groundwater flow paths were consistent with tritium dating.
  • The clay layer did not prevent recharge because of macropores and cracks.
  • Fine-grained floodplain soils do not necessarily protect underlying aquifers from pollution.
  • Combining multiple techniques gives more confidence in recharge estimates.
The article can be found here:
 
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.11.181

References

*Santos, I.R., Zhang, C., Maher, D.T., Atkins, M. L. Holland, R. Morgenstern, U & Li, Ling. 2016. Assessing the Recharge of a Coastal Aquifer using Physical Observations, Tritium, Groundwater Chemistry and Modelling, Science of The Total Environment, Available online 15 December 2016, ISSN 0048-9697, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.11.181.