AEG Dinner Meeting about the Potomac-Raritan-Magothy Aquifer

DINNER MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT

“A Geologic Perspective on the Potomac-Raritan-Magothy Aquifer System”
Thursday, November 16, 2017

At the Clarion Hotel in Somerset, New Jersey
 
Presented by
 
Peter Sugarman, New Jersey Geological and Water Survey 

This meeting is sponsored by

ABSTRACT
The Cretaceous Potomac, Raritan and Magothy Formations form an aquifer system composed of interbedded layers of quartz sand, silt, clay, and lesser gravel. The aquifer system is the most heavily pumped in New Jersey and subdivided into Lower, Middle, and Upper aquifers separated by confining beds.  Results from continuous coreholes drilled at Fort Mott, Medford, Bass River, Sea Girt, and Sandy Hook, New Jersey as part of Offshore Drilling Program Leg 174AX have provided detailed stratigraphic sections of these formations to improve our understanding of their age, depositional environment, thickness, and lateral extent. The Potomac Formation, subdivided into units (from oldest to youngest) I, II, and III based on pollen zones, were deposited in fluvial and delta-plain deposits that formed thin-to-thick sand aquifers/reservoirs separated by thick mud confining units that comprise critical aquifers updip and potential storage reservoirs for carbon sequestration downdip (>2500 ft below land surface). The Potomac is correlative with the lower and middle aquifers.  The Raritan and its downdip facies assigned to the Bass River Formation is dominantly a marginal marine clay-silt deposit that forms a major confining unit.  Previous correlation of the middle aquifer with the Farrington aquifer is questionable, as results from Sea Girt and Bass River indicate the Farrington correlates with the Potomac unit III, suggesting correlation of the Upper aquifer with major sand bodies in the lower part of the Magothy Formation.  The Magothy Formation is composed of six members defined in outcrop with depositional environments ranging from fluvial to deltaic.  We correlate the members over 30 km to the Sea Girt and Sandy Hook boreholes where they also consist of fluvial to deltaic environments. The widespread distribution of Magothy facies suggest that they were deposited by at least one, and possible two major river systems.  

BIOGRAPHY
Peter Sugarman is a research scientist at the New Jersey Geological and Water Survey (NJGWS).  His research over the past 30 years has focused on the stratigraphy of the New Jersey coastal plain (NJCP) where he has served as co-chief scientist on 10 deep coreholes and published numerous bedrock geologic maps.  His work also involves the integration of geological formations, sequences, and aquifers in the NJCP, geologic controls on radon formation in the NJCP, and documentation of sea-level rise over the past 5,000 years from records collected along the New Jersey coast.  Peter previously headed up the NJGWS’s involvement in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership.

Peter is also an Adjunct Professor of Geology at Rutgers University since 1994, where he teaches courses in physical and environmental geology.
 

AEG NY-P’s November 2017 Meeting is sponsored by:
 

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