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Improving our knowledge of offshore freshened groundwater
Chastain, Maddox Dugan, Brandon
Chastain, Maddox
Dugan, Brandon
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2025-04
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Abstract
Offshore freshened groundwater (OFG) is water with a total dissolved solids concentration lower than seawater within aquifers below the seafloor. The emplacement methods, potential of OFG as a resource, and methods that can be used to reliably assess OFG, are currently unknown. Our understanding of OFG is primarily limited to anecdotal evidence from unrelated projects and geophysical surveys. Many hypotheses about OFG dynamics come from conceptual and numerical models which have little supporting data. Currently, age, emplacement mechanisms, and hydrological properties affecting OFG are not well constrained. Much of what we know about OFG has large uncertainty, and without more data, we cannot develop our understanding of OFG further. In summer 2025, an international group of scientists will drill six wells south of Massachusetts in the Atlantic Ocean where the existence of OFG is highly likely. They will use cores, wireline logging, and pump tests to assess age, composition, and hydrologic properties of the OFG system. The data to be collected will focus on the fluid and sediment geochemistry, lithostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, microbiology, and physical properties of OFG bodies and their hydrogeological features. I will perform laboratory experiments on these samples and data to constrain the sediment grain size and subsurface permeability to increase our knowledge on this OFG. Ultimately our work will help us better understand the global phenomenon of OFG.
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