No. 4 Town Bore EarthCache
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This Earth cache will help with our understanding of the Great Artesian Basin and it's importance to Australia.
Many towns in Queensland's central west are reliant on bore water or river water. The Great Artesian Basin (GAB) is the longest and deepest basin in the world, stretching over 1.7million square kilometres and underlies approximately 22% of Australia. It is Australia's most important water resource. To appreciate the magnitude of it http://www.ga.gov.au/news-events/features/navigating-australias-largest-groundwater-resource European discovery of this basin dates from 1878 when a shallow bore was sunk near Bourke in NSW. Since then, the GAB has become an important water supply for livestock, irrigation and domestic use and is a vital life line. The water of the GAB is held in a sandstone layer laid down by continental erosion of higher ground millionsof years ago. During that time, when much of inland Australia was an inland sea, the sandstone covered a layer of marine sedimentary rock shortly afterwards, forming a confining layer and trapping water in the sandstone layer or aquifer. Most refill water enters the rock formations from quite high in the eastern edge of the basin, mostly along the Great Dividing Range in Queensland and New South Wales and gradually flows towards the south and west. A much smaller amount enters along the western margin in arid central parts of Australia, flowing to the south and east. As sandstone is permeable, water gradually makes its way through the grains in the rock and into the basin. From the beginning of the discovery of the water, most bores were allowed to flow freely and uncontrolled on to the ground, running in open bore drains to water stock. However, up to 95% of the water was lost through evaporation and seepage. In 1999 a government initiative called Great Artesian Sustainability Initiative was introduced whereby bore owners were offered government assistance as an incentive to accelerate work on the repair of uncontrolled bores and replace open boredrains with piped water reticulation systems. http://www.qldwater.com.au/LiteratureRetrieve.aspx?ID=101799 The Earth Cache You may log this Earthcache straight away however you must then send your answers to the questions to the CO via the Message Centre. Please do NOT use email. We will contact you ONLY if your answers need extra work. Logs with no answers sent will be deleted. The answers can be found by reading the information on the sign at the bore where you are, and a bit of research. Please do not post your answers in your log. 1. What aquifer does this bore tap in to? 2. The sign tells you the depth of this bore. Move that distance away to understand how far that depth is. 3. What do you notice about the taste and smell of the water. What would cause this? Finally, it would be great to see a pic of you at this location.
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Treasures
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