Hydrogeology Facilities

Contact: David W. Hyndman
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
288 Farm Lane, Room 207
East Lansing, MI 48824-1115

Phone: (517) 353-4442
Fax: (517) 353-8787

Laboratory Facilities

The Hydrogeology lab is composed of a high performance computer laboratory and a hydraulic properties and sediment size analysis laboratory. The computer lab contains 6 single Pentium IV computers, and 5 dual Pentium IV workstations with between 512M and 2GB of memory for large three dimensional simulations. The computers are connected via a gigabit switch to a dual Xenon server with 4G of memory (expandable to 12G).

Software for modeling includes MATLAB, SMS, GMS, Visual Modflow, ArcINFO.

Field Equipment

Field instrumentation includes 15 minitroll pressure transducers for measuring water level changes in wells and streams, 20 datalogging pressure and temperature sensors, two small diameter electric tapes for manual water level readings, and three electronic impeller flowmeters . The hydraulic properties lab is set up a series of adjacent permeameters for simultaneous measurement of hydraulic conductivity and porosity of five samples, a full set of sieves with a RotoTap machine for particle size analysis, and an X-ray particle size analyzer. An 8 Mega pixel 4 color CCD digital camera is available for high resolution field and lab photography.

Hydrogeology and Applied Geophysics Courses

A large number of courses offered across the Michigan State University campus in hydrology and water resources. The following courses are offered in hydrogeology and applied geophysics:

• GLG 411 Hydrogeology (3 credits) - Principles of the source, occurrence and movement of groundwater emphasizing geologic factors and controls.
• GLG 471 Applied Geophysics (4 credits) - Application of seismic, gravity, magnetic, resistivity , and electromagnetic methods to problems related to engineering studies, groundwater, susbsurface mapping, and hazardous wastes.
• GLG 481 Reservoirs and Aquifers (3 credits) - Principles of the origin and evolution of porous media. Porosity and permeability of sediments and sedimentary rocks. Computing techniques for evaluating reservoirs and aquifers.
• GLG 803 Seminar in Hydrogeology (variable credits) - Content varies depending on student interest.
• GLG 811 Advanced Hydrogeology (3 credits) - Processes influencing groundwater flow and solute transport; mathematical equations and numerical models to describe these processes.
• CE 821 Groundwater Hydraulics (3 credits) - Physical properties of porous media. Equations of flow in saturated media. Flow nets, well flow and parameter measurement. Transport processes and the advection-dispersion equation for conservative contaminants.