Hydrogeochemistry of Upper Hunter River Valley Groundwater

Geoscience Australia data details the chemistry of groundwater in the upper Hunter River valley of New South Wales, focusing on regional recharge zones in Triassic and Carboniferous rocks. The dataset describes processes like silicate and carbonate dissolution/precipitation, ion exchange, and oxidation of coals and sulphides, which influence water salinity and mineral equilibrium. It covers specific geological formations including the Wollombi Coal Measures, Greta Coal Measures, and the Wittingham Coal Measures, and analyzes disequilibrium indices for minerals like calcite, dolomite, and dawsonite.

Use Cases

• Modeling groundwater salinity sources based on oxidation of sulphides and diffusion of connate marine salts.
• Assessing mineral saturation and precipitation/dissolution reactions using disequilibrium indices for carbonates.
• Identifying regional groundwater transmission and recharge zones from described aquifer structures and rock formations.
• Studying the paleohydrochemical regime's influence on modern groundwater chemistry from iron carbonate distributions.

Strengths

• Produced by Geoscience Australia, a national geological survey, indicating authoritative sourcing.
• Detailed geochemical and hydrogeological descriptions covering multiple specific rock formations and processes.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing: row count, file size, column names, and specific data format are unknown.
• The dataset's freshness is unclear as the 'last updated' date is a future date (2026-04-20), suggesting a metadata error.
• Documentation appears limited to a descriptive abstract without visibility into the actual data structure or accessibility.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Freshness

Last updated metadata shows 2026-04-20 (a future date, likely an error) and 2026-03-07.

Geography

Upper Hunter River valley, New South Wales, Australia