Tritium in Australian precipitation: A 50 year record

Tadros, Carol V.; Hughes, Catherine E.; Crawford, Jagoda; Hollins, Suzanne; Chisari, Robert

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.03.031

Cited by 127 publications

(117 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…The surface water sample was best described using a correction factor of 1.25 on the 3 H input curve. This is reasonable in view of a higher continental influence of the Namoi catchment as compared to Kaitoke where the record originates [Tadros et al, 2014]. All tested models (that is, PM, EM, DM, LM, and GM) were in agreement for surface water being diluted by a factor of 0.96 in 14 C activity relative to the atmospheric record.…”

Section: 1002/2014wr015663supporting

confidence: 65%

“…Tritium activities were measured at the GNS Laboratory (New Zealand) following electrolytic enrichment [Morgenstern and Taylor, 2009], with a detection limit of 0.02 TU and a precision at an average 3 H concentration of recent rain of 60.04 TU. Rainfall 3 H in the Namoi catchment is 2.4-2.8 TU [Tadros et al, 2014].…”

Section: Water Level and Piezometric Surface Monitoringmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…correction factor to the tritium input curve, accounting for the continental effect [Tadros et al, 2014]. The river system itself can have a mean residence time of months to years , which can be accounted for if a tritium time series is available.…”

Section: 1002/2014wr015663mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

River infiltration to a subtropical alluvial aquifer inferred using multiple environmental tracers

Lamontagne

Taylor

Batlle-Aguilar

et al. 2015

Water Resources Research

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Section: 1002/2014wr015663supporting

confidence: 65%

Section: Water Level and Piezometric Surface Monitoringmentioning

confidence: 96%

See 1 more Smart Citation

River infiltration to a subtropical alluvial aquifer inferred using multiple environmental tracers

Lamontagne

Taylor

Batlle-Aguilar

et al. 2015

Water Resources Research

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“…The highest 3 H activities of 2.31 and 2.36 TU are from a sample 40 m from the river and the Namoi River itself respectively. These are very similar to modern rainfall in Australia (∼ 2-3 TU, Tadros et al, 2014), which suggests modern recharge near the river channels. However, 3 H > 0.04 TU was measured at depth (down to 207 m b.g.s.).…”

Section: Isotopic Tracers ( 3 H 14 C and 36 Cl)supporting

confidence: 64%

“…This is primarily because most thermonuclear testing was undertaken in the Northern Hemisphere far from Australia and mixing is limited between the atmospheric convection cells in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Therefore, 3 H in Australian rainfall has been at natural background concentrations for some time (Tadros et al, 2014).…”

Section: Isotopic Tracers ( 3 H 14 C and 36 Cl)mentioning

confidence: 99%

A multi-tracer approach to constraining artesian groundwater discharge into an alluvial aquifer

Iverach

Cendón

Meredith

et al. 2017

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Understanding pathways of recharge to alluvial aquifers is important for maintaining sustainable access to groundwater resources. Water balance modelling is often used to proportion recharge components and guide sustainable groundwater allocations. However, it is not common practice to use hydrochemical evidence to inform and constrain these models. Here we compare geochemical versus water balance model estimates of artesian discharge into an alluvial aquifer, and demonstrate why multi-tracer geochemical analyses should be used as a critical component of water budget assessments. We selected a site in Australia where the Great Artesian Basin (GAB), the largest artesian basin in the world, discharges into the Lower Namoi Alluvium (LNA), an extensively modelled aquifer, to convey the utility of our approach. Water stable isotopes (δ 18 O and δ 2 H) and the concentrations of Na + and HCO − 3 suggest a continuum of mixing in the alluvial aquifer between the GAB (artesian component) and surface recharge, whilst isotopic tracers ( 3 H, 14 C, and 36 Cl) indicate that the alluvial groundwater is a mixture of groundwaters with residence times of < 70 years and groundwater that is potentially hundreds of thousands of years old, which is consistent with that of the GAB. In addition, Cl − concentrations provide a means to calculate a percentage estimate of the artesian contribution to the alluvial groundwater. In some locations, an artesian contribution of up to 70 % is evident from the geochemical analyses, a finding that contrasts with previous regional-scale water balance modelling estimates that attributed 22 % of all inflow for the corresponding zone within the LNA to GAB discharge. Our results show that hydrochemical investigations need to be undertaken as part of developing the conceptual framework of a catchment water balance model, as they can improve our understanding of recharge pathways and better constrain artesian discharge to an alluvial aquifer.

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Identifying modern and historic recharge events from tracer‐derived groundwater age distributions

McCallum

Cook

Dogramaci

et al. 2017

Water Resources Research

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Understanding groundwater ages offers insight into the time scales of recharge, aquifer storage turnover times, and contaminant protection time frames. The ability to quantify groundwater age distributions heavily depends on the choice of the interpretive model, and often important features of the age distribution cannot be identified with the subset of available models. In this paper, we implemented a multiple tracer method using a technique that assumes limited details regarding the shape of the age distribution and applied it to dewatering wells at a mine site in the Pilbara region of north‐western Australia. Using our method, we were able to identify distinct age components in the groundwater. We calculated the presence of four distinct age groups in the samples. All wells contained water aged between zero and 20 years. However, the rest of the samples were composed of water between 50 and 100 years, 100 and 600 years, or water approximately 1000 years old. These were consistent with local recharge sources (50–100 years) and knowledge of paleoclimate from lake sediment records. We found that although the age components were well constrained, the relative proportions of each component were highly sensitive to errors of environmental tracer data. Our results show that our method can identify distinct age groups in groundwater samples without prior knowledge of the age distribution. The presence of distinct recharge times gives insight into groundwater flow conditions over long periods of time.

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Tritium in Australian precipitation: A 50 year record

Cited by 127 publications

References 37 publications

River infiltration to a subtropical alluvial aquifer inferred using multiple environmental tracers

River infiltration to a subtropical alluvial aquifer inferred using multiple environmental tracers

A multi-tracer approach to constraining artesian groundwater discharge into an alluvial aquifer

Identifying modern and historic recharge events from tracer‐derived groundwater age distributions

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