Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Schwartz, Franklin W.
• Milne-Home, William A.

Titel

Watersheds in muskeg terrain: 1. The chemistry of water systems

Ist Teil von

• Journal of hydrology (Amsterdam), 1982-01, Vol.57 (3), p.267-290

Ort / Verlag

Elsevier B.V

Erscheinungsjahr

1982

Quelle

Elsevier Journal Backfiles on ScienceDirect (DFG Nationallizenzen)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The Muskeg River basin has been the subject of a detailed, chemically based study of watersheds with extensive muskeg terrain. The objectives of this paper are to describe the chemical features of water from various components of the hydrologic cycle, and to interpret the groundwater and surface water processes in the watershed. Over a two-year period, it has been possible to characterize the variability in the major-ion chemistry of stream water, groundwater, muskeg water, and indirectly surface runoff. In most cases, waters are of the Ca 2+Mg 2+HCO − 3-type but differ in that muskeg drainage and surface runoff are much more dilute than groundwaters from glacial drift units. Depending upon the time of year, stream water has a chemical composition that ranges between these groups. Streams in the Muskeg River basin are at baseflow only during the winter when there are no important sources of streamflow other than groundwater. At these times, the chemistry of the stream water and the average chemistry of groundwater from glacial drift units are nearly identical. Following spring snowmelt, drainage from muskeg is the main contributor to streamflow along with groundwater inflow. Stream water becomes chemically more similar to standing water in muskeg than to groundwater. During snowmelt runoff and other storm runoff periods, for example, September and October 1978, ion concentrations and specific conductance may be reduced further as direct precipitation and occasionally surface runoff contribute to streamflow.