McBride
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The Upper Burdekin Basalt extents web service delivers province extents, detailed geology, spring locations and inferred regional groundwater contours for the formations of the Nulla and McBride Basalts. This work has been carried out as part of Geoscience Australia's Exploring for the Future program.
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The Upper Burdekin Chloride Mass Balance Recharge web service depicts the recharge rates have been estimated at borehole locations in the Nulla and McBride basalt provinces. Using rainfall rates, rainfall chemistry and groundwater chemistry, the recharge rates have been estimated through the Chloride Mass Balance approach.
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This report presents key results of groundwater barometric response function development and interpretation from the Upper Burdekin Groundwater Project in North Queensland, conducted as part of Exploring for the Future (EFTF)—an eight year, $225 million Australian Government funded geoscience data and information acquisition program focused on better understanding the potential mineral, energy and groundwater resources across Australia. The Upper Burdekin Groundwater Project is a collaborative study between Geoscience Australia and the Queensland Government. It focuses on basalt groundwater resources in two geographically separate areas: the Nulla Basalt Province (NBP) in the south and the McBride Basalt Province (MBP) in the north. The NBP and MBP basalt aquifers are heterogeneous, fractured, vesicular systems. This report assesses how water levels in monitoring bores in the NBP and MBP respond to barometric pressure changes to evaluate the degree of formation confinement. The main process used to evaluate water level response to barometric pressure in this study is based on barometric efficiency (BE). The BE of a formation is calculated by dividing the change in monitoring bore water level by the causative barometric pressure change. Both parameters are expressed in the same units, so BE will typically be some fraction between zero and one. BE is not necessarily constant over time; the way BE changes following a theoretical step change in barometric pressure can be described using a barometric response function (BRF). BRFs were calculated in the time domain and plotted as BE against time lag for interpretation. The BRF shape was used to assess the degree of formation confinement. Although there is some uncertainty due to monitoring bore construction issues (including long effective screens) and potentially air or gas trapped in the saturated zone, all BRFs in the current project are interpreted to indicate unconfined conditions. This finding is supported by the identification of recharge at many monitoring bores through hydrograph analysis in other EFTF project components. We conclude that formations are likely to be unconfined at many project monitoring bores assessed in this study.
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This web service provides access to groundwater raster products for the Upper Burdekin region, including: inferred relative groundwater recharge potential derived from weightings assigned to qualitative estimates of relative permeability based on mapped soil type and surface geology; Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) used to map vegetation with potential access to groundwater in the basalt provinces, and; base surfaces of basalt inferred from sparse available data.
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This is a raster representing the base surface of the McBride Basalt Province, inferred from sparse data available, dominated by private water bore records. This interpretation was conducted by a hydrogeologist from Geoscience Australia. Caveats • This is just one model, based on sparse data and considerable palaeotopographic interpretation • This model relies on the input datasets being accurate. However it is noted that substantial uncertainty exists both in the location of private bores and the use of drillers’ logs for identifying stratigraphic contacts. • The location of palaeothalwegs is imprecise, and often it is only indicative of the presence of a palaeovalley. • The purpose of this model is for visualisation purposes, so should not be considered a definitive depth prediction dataset.
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This dataset includes point estimates of groundwater recharge in mm/year. Recharge rates have been estimated at monitoring bore locations in the basaltic aquifers of the Nulla and McBride basalt provinces. Recharge estimates have been calculated using the “chloride mass balance” method. The chloride mass balance process assumes that the chloride ion is a conservative tracer in precipitation, evapotranspiration, recharge and runoff; and that all the chloride is from rainfall, instead of for example halite saturation or dissolution processes. So the volumetric water balance and the flux of chloride balance must both be true. Assuming that runoff and evapotranspiration are negligible (so approximated by zero), the equation is simplified: Water balance P=ET+R+Q Water balance multiplied by chloride concentrations (chloridefluxbalance) P∙Cl_ppt=ET∙Cl_ET+R∙Cl_gw+Q∙Cl_riv | ΔCl_reac≈0 Assumptions to simplify equation P∙Cl_ppt=R∙Cl_gw | Q≈0 & ET≈0 Rearranging for recharge rate (unknown) R=P∙(Cl_ppt)/(Cl_gw ) | Q≈0 & ET≈0 Where P = precipitation rate; ET = evapotranspiration rate; R = recharge rate; Q = runoff to streams; Clppt = concentration of Cl in precipitation; ClET = concentration of chloride in evapotranspiration; Clgw = concentration of Cl in groundwater; Clriv = concentration of chloride in river runoff; ΔClreac = change in chloride concentrations from reactions.
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This data release presents regional scale groundwater contours developed for the Upper Burdekin Groundwater Project in North Queensland, conducted as part of Exploring for the Future (EFTF), an Australian Government funded geoscience data and information acquisition program. The four-year (2016-20) program focused on better understanding the potential mineral, energy and groundwater resources in northern Australia. The Upper Burdekin Groundwater Project is a collaborative study between Geoscience Australia and the Queensland Government. It focuses on basalt groundwater resources in two geographically separate areas: the Nulla Basalt Province (NBP) in the south and the McBride Basalt Province (MBP) in the north. This data release includes separate, regional-scale groundwater contour datasets for the Nulla and McBride basalt provinces developed by Geoscience Australia in: Cook, S. B. & Ransley, T. R., 2020. Exploring for the Future—Groundwater level interpretations for the McBride and Nulla basalt provinces: Upper Burdekin region, North Queensland. Geoscience Australia, Canberra, https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/135439. As detailed in that document, the groundwater contours were drawn by hand based on: - Groundwater levels from monitoring bores measured mostly on 17 February 2019 following extensive rainfall. - Surface topography. - Surface water features (rivers and springs). - Remote sensing data. The inferred groundwater contours were used in various Upper Burdekin Groundwater Project components to frame hydrogeological discussions. It is important to note that they were drawn following a wet period; groundwater contours are temporally variable and those presented in this data release therefore only represent part of the regional groundwater flow system.
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<p>The outcrop extent of the McBride Basalt Province, selected from the Queensland Detailed Surface Geology vector polygon mapping, March 2017. <p>© State of Queensland (Department of Natural Resources and Mines) 2017 Creative Commons Attribution
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The Tasselled Cap Wetness (TCW) percentage exceedance composite represents the behaviour of water in the landscape, as defined by the presence of water, moist soil or wet vegetation at each pixel through time. The summary shows the percentage of observed scenes where the Wetness layer of the Tasselled Cap transform is above the threshold, i.e. where each pixel has been observed as ‘wet’. Areas that retain surface water or wetness in the landscape during the dry season are potential areas of groundwater discharge and associated GDEs. The TCW exceedance composite was classified into percentage intervals to distinguish areas that were wet for different proportions of time during the 2013 dry season. Areas depicted in the dataset have been exaggerated to enable visibility.
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This technical report details the methods and results the drilling programs of the Upper Burdekin Groundwater Project conducted as part of Exploring for the Future (EFTF)—an eight year, $225 million Australian Government funded geoscience data and information acquisition program focused on better understanding the potential mineral, energy and groundwater resources across Australia. This report was written by Queensland Government collaborators in the Department of Environment and Science, and is published here as supplied to Geoscience Australia at the conclusion of the project. The drilling program itself was conducted by the Department of Environment and Science as part of the Upper Burdekin Groundwater Project. A total of 17 holes were drilled in 2017-18 at 13 sites with a total combined depth of 943.2 metres. These comprise selected locations across both the Nulla Basalt Province and McBride Basalt Province. A network of 15 monitoring bores were constructed with two test holes backfilled and decommissioned.