Where’s the Best Place to Drill?

clear, cold groundwater flowing from a freshly drilled well

Locating supplies of underground water and picking the best drilling sites are particularly challenging in fractured rock aquifer terrain, widespread in the eastern US and elsewhere around the world.  In many situations, locating a successful well requires a systematic approach that integrates three disciplines: geologic reconnaissance, fracture trace analysis, and geophysical exploration. For some sites, optimal drilling targets can be selected on the basis of geologic reconnaissance alone. In other cases, a combination of geologic study and fracture trace analysis is the most cost-effective approach. On some sites, geophysical exploration in conjunction with geologic study and fracture trace analysis is the only way to locate optimal drilling targets.

Picking Optimal Drilling Sites

Using Geophysics to Find Groundwater