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AQUIFER
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Underground bed or layer yielding ground water for wells and springs etc
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)
Hypernyms ("aquifer" is a kind of...):
formation; geological formation ((geology) the geological features of the earth)
Derivation:
aquiferous (of or relating to an aquifer)
Context examples:
Using a novel, helicopter-borne sensor to penetrate the surface of large swathes of terrain, a team of researchers has gathered compelling evidence that beneath Antarctica's ice-free McMurdo Dry Valleys lies a salty aquifer that may support previously unknown microbial ecosystems and retain evidence of ancient climate change.
(Discovered deep under Antarctic surface: Extensive, salty aquifer and potentially vast microbial habitat, NSF)
The discovery of tritium traces in deep fossil aquifers, which were originally recharged by precipitation more than 12,000 years ago, is being attributed by the researchers to contamination by ‘younger’ groundwater closer to the earth’s surface.
(Modern pollutants can reach deep fossil aquifers, SciDev.Net)
As the heated water rises, cold, oxygenated water is pulled into the rocks, creating a massive undersea aquifer.
(Microbes in underground aquifers beneath deep-sea Mid-Atlantic Ridge 'chow down' on carbon, National Science Foundation)
This aquifer is a rare chance to study the ocean in its natural state.
(Microbes in underground aquifers beneath deep-sea Mid-Atlantic Ridge 'chow down' on carbon, National Science Foundation)
A research team led by ecologists Sunita Shah Walter of the University of Delaware and Peter Girguis of Harvard University has shown that underground aquifers near the undersea Mid-Atlantic Ridge act like natural biological reactors, pulling in cold, oxygenated seawater, and allowing microbes to consume more refractory carbon than scientists believed.
(Microbes in underground aquifers beneath deep-sea Mid-Atlantic Ridge 'chow down' on carbon, National Science Foundation)
