Chemical composition of groundwaters was investigated in the region of the Hornsund fjord (southern Spitsbergen). The investigations were conducted during polar expeditions organized by the University of Wroclaw in two summer seasons of 2003 and 2006. Three zones of groundwater circulation: suprapermafrost, intrapermafrost and subpermafrost, were identified in areas of perennial permafrost in the region of Hornsund. The zone of shallow circulation occurs in non-glaciated (suprapermafrost) and subglacial areas. In this zone, the chemical composition of groundwater originates from initial chemical composition of precipitation, mineralogical composition of bedrock, oxidation of sulphides and dissolution of carbonates. The intermediate system of circulation is connected with water flow inside and below perennial permafrost (intrapermafrost and subpermafrost). In this zone, the chemical composition of groundwater is mainly controlled by dissolution of carbonates, ion exchange processes involving Ca2+ substitution by Na+, and oxidation of sulphides under oxygen-depleted conditions. The subpermafrost zone (deep groundwater circulation) occurs in deep-tectonic fractures, which are likely conduits for the descent of shallow groundwater to deeper depths. In this zone, the groundwater shows lower mineralization comparing to intrapermafrost zone and has a multi-ion nature Cl–HCO3–Na-Ca–Mg.

No abstract

1 Wroc³aw Uni ver sity, In sti tute of Geo log i cal Sci ences, M. Borna sq. 9, 50-204 Wroc³aw, Po land Tarka, R., Olichwer, T., Staoeko, S., 2017. Eval u a tion of ground wa ter re charge in Po land us ing the in fil tra tion co ef fi cient method. Geo log i cal Quar terly, 61 (2): 384-395, doi: 10.7306/gq.1341Vari able meth ods and re sults are re ported on ground wa ter re charge in Po land. The eval u a tion of re charge on a small scale re quires the use of a sin gle method. In or der to eval u ate these out comes and their dis tri bu tion, the au thors have de cided to ver ify dif fer ent ap proaches and se lect the in fil tra tion co ef fi cient by com par i son. The ar ti cle is an ex ten sion of the stud ies on ground wa ter re charge con ducted by the au thors. The main goal is to ver ify pre vi ously de signed val ues of the in fil tra tion co effi cient based on ground wa ter run off from ad di tional river bas ins in Po land. To tal ground wa ter re charge from pre cip i ta tion in Po land was cal cu lated at 34,118 km 3 per year, which equals 109.3 mm of wa ter col umn. The ob tained value is close to the av er age multi-year value of the ground wa ter run off. Re charge con sti tuted 18.6% of av er age pre cip i ta tion in Po land, which was cal cu lated at 588.5 mm. The es ti mated ground wa ter re charge value was ver i fied re fer ring to ground wa ter run off from 37 river bas ins with known dis charge rates in the years 1976-2005. Dif fer ences in mean ground wa ter run off for the en tire area (37 river bas ins) ob tained by the in fil tra tion co ef fi cient method and by the use of Wundt's method amounts to only 0.7%. Despite the sim pli fied cal cu la tion meth ods, the re sults ob tained on a small scale are more ac cu rate than other cal cu la tions, which are based on data per tain ing to pre cip i ta tion, soil type, land use, to pog ra phy of the area, and depth to the ground wa ter.