POTENTIAL HAZARDS TO WATER By C. V. Theis 1199.2 7 44 روور Егов U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY Open File Report 91-82 Prepared in cooperation with Reston, Virginia 1991 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY Copies of the report can be purchased from: U.S. Geological Survey Box 25425, Federal Center, Bldg. 41 FOREWORD During his long and productive life, C.V. Theis, regarded by his scientific peers as the father of quantitative ground-water hydrology, authored about 150 reports. About one third of these reports were prepared for various U.S. Federal and Military agencies during and following World War II and never released to the public. These agencies (or their present day equivalents) have agreed that it is desirable to make these reports available for study by historians, scholars, and others interested in the development of the science of ground-water hydrology. iii GEOLOGY AND HYDROLOGY OF AREA INVOLVED IN PROPOSED FLIGHT TEST BY CONVAIR By C. V. Theis General Nature of Proposed Project Convair proposes to convey a nuclear reactor in the bomb bay of a B-36 bomber with take-off at Carswell Air Base at Fort Worth, flight along an east-west corridor a little north of Fort Worth, and test in a rectangular area, the boundaries of which are approximately, on the west, the Pecos River; on the north; the latitude of the north boundary of Lea County, New Mexico; on the east, the east boundary of Conchran and Yockum Counties, Texas; on the south, about the 33d parallel. The corridor and test areas have been chosen to avoid large towns. The test procedure that will be followed, according to Convair officials, will be to fly the reactor inoperative out of Fort Worth, use it in the test area, and return to Fort Worth with the reactor shut down but still quite radioactive. The reactor will eventually reach a power of about 1,000 kilowatts and will be watercooled and moderated. This water system will be about 200 gallons in volume. At the conclusion of the test the water will be drained from the reactor into a special tank. The reactor itself with sheet-type fuel elements will be contained in a shell of 3/4-inch stainless steel. The normal dissolved solids of the water will become radioactive perhaps to a level of 1 or 2 curies, barring any contamination from imperfect fuel elements. The hazards to be considered are (1) a crash at take-off or landing at Fort Worth, (2) a possible crash during an emergency landing at Roswell, which will probably be the best alternate landing field, and (3) crash elsewhere in the corridor and test area. Resume of Geology of Flight Corridor and Test Area The area involved consists of a great downwarp or trough of the older rocks covered on both its east and west sides by younger sediments laid down over the truncated edges of these older rocks. (See figure 1.) The older rocks are Pennsylvanian and Permian in age, the former outcropping from about 40 to about 110 miles west of Fort Worth or from about the western edge of Parker County to the vicinity of Albany and Throckmorton, and the latter from there to about 20 miles east of Post. These rocks consist of shales, impure sandstones, and some limestone and gypsum. As a consequence, ground water is of little consequence, and all the larger public water supplies in the outcrop of these rocks are taken from surface waters. A few small supplies, indicated on Figure 1, are drawn from shallow alluvial deposits. East of the western border of Parker County, Cretaceous rocks lie across the leveled edges of the older rocks and dipping eastward in a short distance attain a great thickness. |