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Greg Brick

University of Minnesota, Earth Sciences, Alumnus

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Greg Brick was employed as a hydrogeologist at environmental consulting firms and has taught geology at local colleges. He served on Mayor Randy Kelly’s caves commission in 2004. He has published many articles about caves, is the editor of an international cave journal, and was the recipient of the 2005 National Speleological Society Award in Cave History. His first book, Iowa Underground: A Guide to the State’s Subterranean Treasures, was published in 2004. His latest book, Subterranean Twin Cities, was published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2009, won the 2010 American Institute of Architects Award of Recognition. His work has been featured in National Geographic Adventure magazine as well as on the History Channel.

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The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Tommaso Mattioli

Marta Diaz-Guardamino

Durham University

Stanford University

Jordi M. (de) Gibert

Universitat de Barcelona

Queensland Museum

Gabriel Gutierrez-Alonso

University of Salamanca

Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Hungarian Academy of Sciences

University of Oxford

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Books by Greg Brick

Subterranean Twin Cities

Iowa Underground: A Guide to the State's Subterranean Treasures

Wakan Tipi Cave

Papers by Greg Brick

The Great Subterranean Spring of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, and the potential impact of subsurface urban heat islands (SUHIs)

Anthropogenic subsurface urban heat islands (SUHIs) in groundwater under cities are known worldwi... more Anthropogenic subsurface urban heat islands (SUHIs) in groundwater under cities are known worldwide. SUHIs are potentially threats to springs because much spring fauna, like trout, amphipods, and rare plants, is cold stenothermal. The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, has a SUHI documented by the temperature of an underground spring, dubbed "Little Minnehaha Falls," inside Schieks Cave, which is located 23 m below the central core of the city. In 2000 the temperature of that spring was elevated 11°C above regional background groundwater temperatures (8°C) at this latitude (45°N). A thermometric survey of the cave and nearby tunnel seepages in 2007 found that an abandoned drill-hole through the bedrock ceiling of the cave was discharging groundwater with a temperature of 17.9°C. By comparison, groundwater in the deep water-table below the cave was closer to natural background temperatures for the region. The unusually warm groundwater was thereby localized to the strata above the cave. This is the strongest signal of anthropogenic groundwater warming in the state of Minnesota and is attributed to vertical heat conduction from basements and pavements. Minneapolis is unique among SUHIs in that a cave forms a natural collection gallery deep below the city surface, whereas the literature is almost exclusively based on data from observation wells.

The Great Subterranean Spring of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, and the potential impact of subsurface urban heat islands (SUHIs)

Anthropogenic subsurface urban heat islands (SUHIs) in groundwater under cities are known worldwi... more Anthropogenic subsurface urban heat islands (SUHIs) in groundwater under cities are known worldwide. SUHIs are potentially threats to springs because much spring fauna, like trout, amphipods, and rare plants, is cold stenothermal. The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, has a SUHI documented by the temperature of an underground spring, dubbed "Little Minnehaha Falls," inside Schieks Cave, which is located 23 m below the central core of the city. In 2000 the temperature of that spring was elevated 11°C above regional background groundwater temperatures (8°C) at this latitude (45°N). A thermometric survey of the cave and nearby tunnel seepages in 2007 found that an abandoned drill-hole through the bedrock ceiling of the cave was discharging groundwater with a temperature of 17.9°C. By comparison, groundwater in the deep water-table below the cave was closer to natural background temperatures for the region. The unusually warm groundwater was thereby localized to the strata above the cave. This is the strongest signal of anthropogenic groundwater warming in the state of Minnesota and is attributed to vertical heat conduction from basements and pavements. Minneapolis is unique among SUHIs in that a cave forms a natural collection gallery deep below the city surface, whereas the literature is almost exclusively based on data from observation wells.

Bedrock Collapse in St. Peter Sandstone

Abstracts with programs, 2020

Geologic Contexts of Minnesota’s Sand and Gravel Pits

Abstracts with programs, 2020

Paradigmatic Studies in Midwestern Cave Science

Springer eBooks, Dec 2, 2020

The Far Shoals of Neptunism: William H. Keating and the St. Peter Sandstone in the American Midwest

Earth Sciences History, 2022

ABSTRACT William H. Keating (1799–1840) served as mineralogist on Major Stephen H. Long’s 1823 ex... more ABSTRACT William H. Keating (1799–1840) served as mineralogist on Major Stephen H. Long’s 1823 expedition to the source of the St. Peter’s (Minnesota) River, concluding, on the basis of grain shape, that the St. Peter Sandstone, at what was later to be its type section, Fort Snelling, in the state of Minnesota, was a chemical precipitate from seawater. This appears to be an echo of the Neptunist teachings of Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749–1817), as interpreted in the American Midwest. While endorsed by prominent geologist James Hall and others, and given some plausibility by the analogy of siliceous sinter depositing from hot springs in Iceland, the ‘purity’ criterion used by supporters of the theory was found fallacious with further advances in sedimentology such as those by Charles L. Dake and George A. Thiel. The word ‘purity,’ which was industrial-commercial parlance, merged into the concept of ‘maturity’ in the ternary sandstone classifications of the 1940s. Because the St. Peter Sandstone appears so featureless, actors projected their latent biases onto the blank walls of the sandstone outcrops.

Exploration and Institutional History of Caves of the Upper Midwest, USA

Cave and karst systems of the world, Dec 2, 2020

“Two Distinct Creators”: Comparing Darwin’s and Wallace’s Formative Travels, and How it Influenced their Theory of Evolution

Open Journal for Studies in History

Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace independently arrived at similar theories of evolution b... more Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace independently arrived at similar theories of evolution by natural selection as announced in 1858. Both men had undertaken transformative travels that provided data for their conclusions. This article compares and contrasts their published travel narratives and shows how it impacted their interpretations. While Darwin’s voyage aboard the H.M.S. Beagle (1831-1836) was largely in the southern hemisphere temperate zone, Wallace’s (1854-1862) island-hopping expedition was confined to the Malayan (Indonesian) Archipelago. Although very similar, there were slight differences in their resulting theories of natural selection. The debates that would divide them on this issue related especially to sexual dimorphism in birds and butterflies, with examples from their travels. Both men, however, perceived the profound differences between the Australian fauna and that of the rest of the world. Wallace was able to identify the exact boundary between these tw...

Defrocking the false father of the ‘Driftless Area’, USA

Geology Today

The Driftless Area is a designation popular in American promotional tourist literature for an are... more The Driftless Area is a designation popular in American promotional tourist literature for an area in four contiguous American states, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois, that were not glaciated during the latest ice advance. Geographer Lawrence Martin published several articles asserting that geologist William H. Keating first discovered this area in 1823, an error that has crept into subsequent accounts. But historical evidence goes to show that three geologists, Roland D. Irving, Newton H. Winchell and Thomas C. Chamberlin, were simultaneous originators of the concept as we understand it today, about the year 1877.

The Great Subterranean Spring of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, and the Potential Impact of Subsurface Urban Heat Islands

Geophysical monograph, Nov 18, 2022

Anthropogenic subsurface urban heat islands (SUHIs) in groundwater under cities are known worldwi... more Anthropogenic subsurface urban heat islands (SUHIs) in groundwater under cities are known worldwide. SUHIs are potentially threats to springs because much spring fauna, like trout, amphipods, and rare plants, is cold stenothermal. The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, has a SUHI documented by the temperature of an underground spring, dubbed "Little Minnehaha Falls," inside Schieks Cave, which is located 23 m below the central core of the city. In 2000 the temperature of that spring was elevated 11°C above regional background groundwater temperatures (8°C) at this latitude (45°N). A thermometric survey of the cave and nearby tunnel seepages in 2007 found that an abandoned drill-hole through the bedrock ceiling of the cave was discharging groundwater with a temperature of 17.9°C. By comparison, groundwater in the deep water-table below the cave was closer to natural background temperatures for the region. The unusually warm groundwater was thereby localized to the strata above the cave. This is the strongest signal of anthropogenic groundwater warming in the state of Minnesota and is attributed to vertical heat conduction from basements and pavements. Minneapolis is unique among SUHIs in that a cave forms a natural collection gallery deep below the city surface, whereas the literature is almost exclusively based on data from observation wells.

Minnesota Caves and Karst

Cave and Karst Systems of the World, 2020

Minnesota Caves: History and Lore

Electronic Access to Minnesota Springs, Karst Features & Groundwater Tracing Information

Proceedings of the 15th Multidisciplinary Conference on Sinkholes and the Engineering and Environmental Impacts of Karst and the 3rd Appalachian Karst Symposium, 2018

Minnesota karst related information has been made electronically accessible through three interre... more Minnesota karst related information has been made electronically accessible through three interrelated databases, the Minnesota Karst Feature Database (KFD), the Minnesota Groundwater Tracing Database (MGTD), and the Minnesota Spring Inventory (MSI). Collectively, this information is a significant asset for use in water resource planning and management in the State of Minnesota. The KFD and MGTD focus primarily on the karst regions of southeastern Minnesota while MSI has extensive coverage within the karst regions of Minnesota, but also extends to all other areas of the state. Reporting associated with four decades of collaborative work pertaining to karst is also available via the Dye Trace Reports Collection on the University of Minnesota Library's Digital Conservancy.

Seeps and Springs at a Platteville “Observatory” on the River Bluffs

Sinkholes and the Engineering and Environmental Impacts of Karst: Proceedings of the Fourteenth Multidisciplinary Conference, 2015

Residential building construction along the Mississippi River bluffs in the 1970s created a uniqu... more Residential building construction along the Mississippi River bluffs in the 1970s created a unique enclosed outcrop of the Late Ordovician Platteville Formation at Lilydale, Minnesota. This outcrop was examined in early 2013 after a newly-formed spring flooded an elevator shaft the previous year, drawing attention to the foundation conditions.

Legacy Data in the Minnesota Spring Inventory

Sinkholes and the Engineering and Environmental Impacts of Karst: Proceedings of the Fourteenth Multidisciplinary Conference, 2015

Past spring inventories have covered certain parts of Minnesota reasonably well; notably, the spr... more Past spring inventories have covered certain parts of Minnesota reasonably well; notably, the springs of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area and the southeastern Minnesota karst. But hitherto, there has not been a systematic effort to create a uniform statewide inventory. The first step, before hunting down new springs, was to compile existing data and the most fruitful source of hydrological legacy data for the Minnesota spring inventory was the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Fisheries files. Once entered into a GIS-capable database, these spring locations can help "seed the ground" so that when crews finally do take to the field to map more springs, they will have known examples to work from. Good baseline and time-series data should also help evaluate the impact of climate change and land use changes on Minnesota's springs over time.

Ten Cent Tour: The Story of Chute's Cave

Subterranean Twin Cities

Iowa Underground: A Guide to the State's Subterranean Treasures

Wakan Tipi Cave

The Great Subterranean Spring of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, and the potential impact of subsurface urban heat islands (SUHIs)

Anthropogenic subsurface urban heat islands (SUHIs) in groundwater under cities are known worldwi... more Anthropogenic subsurface urban heat islands (SUHIs) in groundwater under cities are known worldwide. SUHIs are potentially threats to springs because much spring fauna, like trout, amphipods, and rare plants, is cold stenothermal. The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, has a SUHI documented by the temperature of an underground spring, dubbed "Little Minnehaha Falls," inside Schieks Cave, which is located 23 m below the central core of the city. In 2000 the temperature of that spring was elevated 11°C above regional background groundwater temperatures (8°C) at this latitude (45°N). A thermometric survey of the cave and nearby tunnel seepages in 2007 found that an abandoned drill-hole through the bedrock ceiling of the cave was discharging groundwater with a temperature of 17.9°C. By comparison, groundwater in the deep water-table below the cave was closer to natural background temperatures for the region. The unusually warm groundwater was thereby localized to the strata above the cave. This is the strongest signal of anthropogenic groundwater warming in the state of Minnesota and is attributed to vertical heat conduction from basements and pavements. Minneapolis is unique among SUHIs in that a cave forms a natural collection gallery deep below the city surface, whereas the literature is almost exclusively based on data from observation wells.

The Great Subterranean Spring of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, and the potential impact of subsurface urban heat islands (SUHIs)

Anthropogenic subsurface urban heat islands (SUHIs) in groundwater under cities are known worldwi... more Anthropogenic subsurface urban heat islands (SUHIs) in groundwater under cities are known worldwide. SUHIs are potentially threats to springs because much spring fauna, like trout, amphipods, and rare plants, is cold stenothermal. The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, has a SUHI documented by the temperature of an underground spring, dubbed "Little Minnehaha Falls," inside Schieks Cave, which is located 23 m below the central core of the city. In 2000 the temperature of that spring was elevated 11°C above regional background groundwater temperatures (8°C) at this latitude (45°N). A thermometric survey of the cave and nearby tunnel seepages in 2007 found that an abandoned drill-hole through the bedrock ceiling of the cave was discharging groundwater with a temperature of 17.9°C. By comparison, groundwater in the deep water-table below the cave was closer to natural background temperatures for the region. The unusually warm groundwater was thereby localized to the strata above the cave. This is the strongest signal of anthropogenic groundwater warming in the state of Minnesota and is attributed to vertical heat conduction from basements and pavements. Minneapolis is unique among SUHIs in that a cave forms a natural collection gallery deep below the city surface, whereas the literature is almost exclusively based on data from observation wells.

Bedrock Collapse in St. Peter Sandstone

Abstracts with programs, 2020

Geologic Contexts of Minnesota’s Sand and Gravel Pits

Abstracts with programs, 2020

Paradigmatic Studies in Midwestern Cave Science

Springer eBooks, Dec 2, 2020

The Far Shoals of Neptunism: William H. Keating and the St. Peter Sandstone in the American Midwest

Earth Sciences History, 2022

ABSTRACT William H. Keating (1799–1840) served as mineralogist on Major Stephen H. Long’s 1823 ex... more ABSTRACT William H. Keating (1799–1840) served as mineralogist on Major Stephen H. Long’s 1823 expedition to the source of the St. Peter’s (Minnesota) River, concluding, on the basis of grain shape, that the St. Peter Sandstone, at what was later to be its type section, Fort Snelling, in the state of Minnesota, was a chemical precipitate from seawater. This appears to be an echo of the Neptunist teachings of Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749–1817), as interpreted in the American Midwest. While endorsed by prominent geologist James Hall and others, and given some plausibility by the analogy of siliceous sinter depositing from hot springs in Iceland, the ‘purity’ criterion used by supporters of the theory was found fallacious with further advances in sedimentology such as those by Charles L. Dake and George A. Thiel. The word ‘purity,’ which was industrial-commercial parlance, merged into the concept of ‘maturity’ in the ternary sandstone classifications of the 1940s. Because the St. Peter Sandstone appears so featureless, actors projected their latent biases onto the blank walls of the sandstone outcrops.

Exploration and Institutional History of Caves of the Upper Midwest, USA

Cave and karst systems of the world, Dec 2, 2020

“Two Distinct Creators”: Comparing Darwin’s and Wallace’s Formative Travels, and How it Influenced their Theory of Evolution

Open Journal for Studies in History

Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace independently arrived at similar theories of evolution b... more Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace independently arrived at similar theories of evolution by natural selection as announced in 1858. Both men had undertaken transformative travels that provided data for their conclusions. This article compares and contrasts their published travel narratives and shows how it impacted their interpretations. While Darwin’s voyage aboard the H.M.S. Beagle (1831-1836) was largely in the southern hemisphere temperate zone, Wallace’s (1854-1862) island-hopping expedition was confined to the Malayan (Indonesian) Archipelago. Although very similar, there were slight differences in their resulting theories of natural selection. The debates that would divide them on this issue related especially to sexual dimorphism in birds and butterflies, with examples from their travels. Both men, however, perceived the profound differences between the Australian fauna and that of the rest of the world. Wallace was able to identify the exact boundary between these tw...

Defrocking the false father of the ‘Driftless Area’, USA

Geology Today

The Driftless Area is a designation popular in American promotional tourist literature for an are... more The Driftless Area is a designation popular in American promotional tourist literature for an area in four contiguous American states, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois, that were not glaciated during the latest ice advance. Geographer Lawrence Martin published several articles asserting that geologist William H. Keating first discovered this area in 1823, an error that has crept into subsequent accounts. But historical evidence goes to show that three geologists, Roland D. Irving, Newton H. Winchell and Thomas C. Chamberlin, were simultaneous originators of the concept as we understand it today, about the year 1877.

The Great Subterranean Spring of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, and the Potential Impact of Subsurface Urban Heat Islands

Geophysical monograph, Nov 18, 2022

Anthropogenic subsurface urban heat islands (SUHIs) in groundwater under cities are known worldwi... more Anthropogenic subsurface urban heat islands (SUHIs) in groundwater under cities are known worldwide. SUHIs are potentially threats to springs because much spring fauna, like trout, amphipods, and rare plants, is cold stenothermal. The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, has a SUHI documented by the temperature of an underground spring, dubbed "Little Minnehaha Falls," inside Schieks Cave, which is located 23 m below the central core of the city. In 2000 the temperature of that spring was elevated 11°C above regional background groundwater temperatures (8°C) at this latitude (45°N). A thermometric survey of the cave and nearby tunnel seepages in 2007 found that an abandoned drill-hole through the bedrock ceiling of the cave was discharging groundwater with a temperature of 17.9°C. By comparison, groundwater in the deep water-table below the cave was closer to natural background temperatures for the region. The unusually warm groundwater was thereby localized to the strata above the cave. This is the strongest signal of anthropogenic groundwater warming in the state of Minnesota and is attributed to vertical heat conduction from basements and pavements. Minneapolis is unique among SUHIs in that a cave forms a natural collection gallery deep below the city surface, whereas the literature is almost exclusively based on data from observation wells.

Minnesota Caves and Karst

Cave and Karst Systems of the World, 2020

Minnesota Caves: History and Lore

Electronic Access to Minnesota Springs, Karst Features & Groundwater Tracing Information

Proceedings of the 15th Multidisciplinary Conference on Sinkholes and the Engineering and Environmental Impacts of Karst and the 3rd Appalachian Karst Symposium, 2018

Minnesota karst related information has been made electronically accessible through three interre... more Minnesota karst related information has been made electronically accessible through three interrelated databases, the Minnesota Karst Feature Database (KFD), the Minnesota Groundwater Tracing Database (MGTD), and the Minnesota Spring Inventory (MSI). Collectively, this information is a significant asset for use in water resource planning and management in the State of Minnesota. The KFD and MGTD focus primarily on the karst regions of southeastern Minnesota while MSI has extensive coverage within the karst regions of Minnesota, but also extends to all other areas of the state. Reporting associated with four decades of collaborative work pertaining to karst is also available via the Dye Trace Reports Collection on the University of Minnesota Library's Digital Conservancy.

Seeps and Springs at a Platteville “Observatory” on the River Bluffs

Sinkholes and the Engineering and Environmental Impacts of Karst: Proceedings of the Fourteenth Multidisciplinary Conference, 2015

Residential building construction along the Mississippi River bluffs in the 1970s created a uniqu... more Residential building construction along the Mississippi River bluffs in the 1970s created a unique enclosed outcrop of the Late Ordovician Platteville Formation at Lilydale, Minnesota. This outcrop was examined in early 2013 after a newly-formed spring flooded an elevator shaft the previous year, drawing attention to the foundation conditions.

Legacy Data in the Minnesota Spring Inventory

Sinkholes and the Engineering and Environmental Impacts of Karst: Proceedings of the Fourteenth Multidisciplinary Conference, 2015

Past spring inventories have covered certain parts of Minnesota reasonably well; notably, the spr... more Past spring inventories have covered certain parts of Minnesota reasonably well; notably, the springs of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area and the southeastern Minnesota karst. But hitherto, there has not been a systematic effort to create a uniform statewide inventory. The first step, before hunting down new springs, was to compile existing data and the most fruitful source of hydrological legacy data for the Minnesota spring inventory was the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Fisheries files. Once entered into a GIS-capable database, these spring locations can help "seed the ground" so that when crews finally do take to the field to map more springs, they will have known examples to work from. Good baseline and time-series data should also help evaluate the impact of climate change and land use changes on Minnesota's springs over time.

Ten Cent Tour: The Story of Chute's Cave

Anthropogenic Caves in St. Peter Sandstone at Minneapolis, Minnesota

Journal of Cave and Karst Studies the National Speleological Society Bulletin, 2000

History and Geology at Carver's Cave

Carver's Cave, at St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, was the earliest cave in the Upper Midwest, USA, ... more

“Water Flowing Uphill Is One of the Commonest Facts of Nature”: The Emergence of a Visual Language for Groundwater Geology

Groundwater, 2013

Groundwater Imagery After a while, the groundwater arrows seemed to take counterintuitive directi... more Groundwater Imagery After a while, the groundwater arrows seemed to take counterintuitive directions, as suggested by the quote from Chamberlin (1885) in the title of this article. Ironically, although Chamberlin’s monograph dealt with artesian water, where water does indeed flow upwards (in response to hydraulic gradients), his example of “water flowing uphill” involved a surface stream, where water flows up and over stream obstacles, but moves downhill overall. As shown by recent literature, some very basic groundwater imagery, such as whether water tables should be regarded as subdued replicas of the surface topography, and the shape of the cones of depression around water wells, does not seem to have completely stabilized (e.g., Wampler 1998, 2000; Haitjema and Mitchell-Bruker 2005). Toth (1962, 1963, 2002, 2005) recounted how difficult it was to make the simple scheme of Hubbert (1940) fit his observations of water on the Canadian prairies until the arrows were redirected, producing his famous diagram of nested hydrologic basins. Maxey (1968) followed suit with desert basins. In a visual sense, the abstract diagrams of Toth and others recalled a much earlier situation in the history of visual language for geology, the 17th-century “cosmogonical” theoretical sections of the Earth. The English translation of Thomas Burnet’s Sacred Theory of the Earth was published in 1684 (the original Latin edition had been published in 1681). Inspired by the account of the 970 G. Brick Groundwater 51, no. 6: 968–972 NGWA.org Figure 3. Toth’s (1963) figure illustrating regional groundwater flow has visual analogies to part of Burnet’s (1684) figure illustrating the hydrology of the primeval Earth. The level of visual abstraction is about the same. Earth in Descartes’ Principia Philosophiae (1644), Burnet (1635 to 1715) sought to reconcile the new mechanical philosophy with Biblical narrative, but as with many such efforts it was controversial. Instead of choosing the 6 days of creation to model his account of Earth history upon, Burnet chose the Biblical deluge. The uniform paradisal globe, according to Burnet, was a smooth sphere without mountains or oceans. The smooth crust was underlain, not by the mantle, as taught today, but by a layer of water, below which the core of the Earth was located. Burnet called this buried layer of water the Abyss. Over time, the outer crust dried and cracked, and according to Burnet the Biblical deluge involved the collapse of the crust into this Abyss, splashing the water, causing Noah’s Flood and leaving the mountains we see today. The subsequent history of this tradition has been described by many authors (e.g., Collier 1968; Poole 2010). According to Burnet (1965, 164 to 170), what we would now call groundwater was drawn up by the Sun from the subcrustal Abyss, condensed at the colder poles, fell as rain, and flowed equator-ward in successively bifurcating rivers that eventually seeped back into the Abyss in an equatorial torrid zone, much as desert streams sink into alluvial fans. Burnet’s cycle thus resembled a sort of pre-historic Hadley cell in the atmosphere. Toth’s (1963) figures illustrating regional groundwater flow in nested basins have some visual analogies to Burnet’s (1965) figure illustrating the hydrology of the primeval Earth: the level of visual abstraction, neglecting the scale, is about the same (Figure 3). These “cosmogonical sections” of the Earth presented, according to Rudwick (1976), “highly abstract theoretical statements in a visual language.” Conclusionstheoretical statements in a visual language.” Conclusions The basic elements of modern groundwater imagery developed largely in the second half of the 19th century, depending upon the observation of water levels in numerous wells simultaneously. Taking Darcy’s Law in 1856 as the starting point for the science of groundwater hydrology, in that year the first water-table contours were also depicted, and by 1899 much of the basic imagery was in place. Meinzer (1923) codified groundwater terminology and by the time of the first classic American textbook on the subject, Tolman (1937), a wealth of imagery was being deployed. Thus, if a roughly comparable 80-year period had to be chosen corresponding to Rudwick’s (1976) 80-year period (1760 to 1840) for the development of geologic imagery as a common language, the years from 1860 to 1940—following by a century—pretty much encompasses the same developments within groundwater geology.

Early Graphic Representations of Groundwater Nitrate Concentrations

Groundwater, 2012