RESEARCH EFFORTS
PBAC manages a central clearinghouse of technical documents related to basin hydrogeology. Below is a short list of the most data and research produced regarding the Palouse Basin Aquifer System. Additional documentation can be provided by contacting PBAC.
Palouse Basin Research Database
In 2016, an effort to organize and catalog the hundreds of geologic and hydrogeologic studies regarding the Palouse Basin Aquifer System took place, called the Palouse Ground Water Basin Framework Project. The Framework Project entailed four major tasks:
1. assembling Palouse Basin geologic and hydrogeologic documents and developing a metadata database,
2. reviewing and synthesizing the documents,
3. identifying areas of deficiency in the hydrogeologic literature and outlining potential projects, and
4. final conclusions and recommendations.
Bringing Together the Research
In this continuous lecture series, John H. Bush, emeritus faculty for the Department of Earth and Spatial Sciences at University of Idaho, summarizes relevant Palouse Groundwater Basin research to create a generalized model of the aquifers. This ten-part series covers our current understanding of the complex groundwater system including geologic history, groundwater movement, and aquifer recharge.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Visits the Palouse Basin!
A team of researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) visited the Palouse Groundwater Basin on May 8-12, 2023. The effort is being led by geochemist Alan Seltzer, Assistant Scientist at WHOI in the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry Department, who runs the Seltzer Lab: Seltzer Lab @ WHOI. The Lab specializes in applications of inert gases as quantitative tracers of physical processes in nature. Their current research spans a wide range in both space and time: from using noble gases tracers in the deep ocean to better understand large-scale changes in ocean ventilation in the past, present, and future, to constraining groundwater recharge and flow pathways, to simulating picosecond- and angstrom-scale interactions between dissolved gas atoms and water molecules that give rise to the isotopic signals we observe in nature.
WHOI is interested in understanding the physical properties of groundwater recharge, mixing, flow, and residence time in the Columbia River Basalt aquifers. WHOI had two research teams collecting up to 20 well samples from across the Palouse Basin measuring geochemical tracers of groundwater age, flow, and environmental parameters like temperature and water table depth. The research will build on earlier work done under the direction of University of Idaho Earth and Spatial Science Professor Jeff Langman.
Recent Research Projects