“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then, face to face: now I know in part; but then shaw I know even as also I am known.”
First Corinthians 13:12
This one comes from my backyard.
... where, there's a waterfall, uphill.
However, given a extended drought currently in place, ... and the lack of a significant recharge area, how did this water manage to get itself up
there in the first place?
Even conscious of its temporary validity, like any dogma, we cannot start reasoning until a hypothesis is acknowledged.
The site conceptual model:
The substracts are made of fractured rocks - tabular, placoid and oriented Gneisses and Metasediment bodies of the Carrancas group - & - in addition to the sediments of recent weathering, at the bottom of the valleys.
But then, as a native resident of the region, I would also to add my suspicions of the possible relationship between the different types of the famous mineral waters of Lambarí, Cambuquira, Caxambú and São Lourenço, south of Minas Gerais, Brazil, … and this rock formation, guided by a marked East-West lineament, going, at least, until the city of São Thomé das Letras.
A three-dimensional topographic map helps to support my claim regarding the regional origin of this water, ... going all the way to the tip of this hill ( at the spot X ).
Despite the conceptual implication of this assumption, leading us to a somewhat odd proposition of the perpendicular disposition of the topographic and potentiometric lines.
Boundary conditions
Given the tiny size and steep slope rates of this microbasin, which spans 421 hectares (3.5 x 1.5 km), it can be said that the local recharge and evapotranspiration factors are negligible.
However, as a counter measure indeed, great care was dedicated on carrying out the "structural" task of establishing adequate lateral and superficial boundary conditions to address any possible paths of groundwater intakes and discharges.
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35 GHB - General Heads - elements were placed along the watershed boundaries to moderate both possible [positive contributions upstream] and [negative ones downstream], above and below a certain altitude to be determined by the model.
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39 RIV - River - components were assigned based on the watercourses surface architecture, to answer the distinct stresses of various river segments and hight topographic variability.
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Closes the simulated domain an additional 10 "observations" CHD - constant heads - to connect our downstream boundary to the Rio Verde passing by.
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Nonetheless, Hydraulic Heads (H) of 14 "monitoring wells" positioned no more than 1/2 meter from the surface (Z), and coinciding with the water bodies, such as the many lakes within the domain of interest.
It is also worth mentioning the restrictions made to diminish the available space for the water at the highest rocky outcrops. The contrary being applied to the loaded sedimentary gorges.
And it can said that this tactic worked well when it cames to the requirement to mimic the high hydraulic heads above the region naturally supported by the CHD river.
And for the solids used to fill the model volume, to close these preliminary assumptions:
We sought to promote the fractured and sedimentary aquifers interaction by doing a kind of replication of the main flow directions, via GMS | T-progs.
The idea was to use the interpolation of equiprobable realizations derived from (fictitious) drillings, from wells with five materials, whose upper horizons were oriented in the same direction as the aforementioned East-West lineament (at ~ 40º).
