Cycles

A cycle is defined as a dynamic system that contains the following four components: 1. A substance, element, or set of elements that are in flux (not necessarily a chemical element) o e.g., water 2. A set of reservoirs in which the element resides o e.g., the oceans, the ice caps 3. A set of fluxes, or processes that are moving the elements within reservoirs and from one reservoir to another o e.g., rivers, precipitation 4. Some source of energy that is driving the cycle.

Groundwater
The strict technical definition of groundwater is any water that is found beneath the surface of the Earth. This definition includes a) The moisture that is found in the pores between soil grains b) The fresh to slightly saline water, found in saturated geologic units near the surface, which is used for drinking and irrigation c) The extremely salty brines associated with petroleum deposits and deep sedimentary units d) The water found in the lower lithosphere and in the mantle.

Porosity
All geologic materials have some amount of pore space, or empty space, in them. The term porosity refers to the fraction of the total volume of a rock or sediment that is pore space. More rigorously, it is defined as the volume of the voids divided by the total volume, or

where: Vvoids = volume of the voids [L3] Vtotal = total volume of the sample [L3] Please note the variable n is sometimes used as a variable for porosity. Porosity can also be expressed as a percentage (simply multiply the ratio by 100). Note that porosity is dimensionless. We can also identify a quantity called the Void Ratio (e), which is defined as the volume of voids divided by the volume of solids, or

where: Vsolids = volume of the solids [L3] Geologic materials are never completely dry; there is always some volume of water in them. We can think about geologic materials as composed of multiple phases a solid phase, a water phase, and a gas phase . In turn, the solid phase can be further divided into its individual mineral phases.