Water Table

Water Tables, Ponds and Pools

I searched around for information on the concept of "water tables", and found an illustration that helped me understand a bit better. After some modifications to add ponds and pools, I think it gets the point across nicely.

Porous ground that is saturated with water is called the aquifer.

Ground without water is unsaturated.

An absence of ground below the water table line fills and becomes a pond.

Here's Guajome Upper Pond, in a low spot, where water gathers. I took the picture from the hill above it.

Here is a swampy pond, where water collects after a rain. It's on MCAS Miramar.

Some ground is non-porous (clay, rock) so a quantity of water might collect above it:

•  If the water leaks out the side into the open, we call it a spring.
•  If the water sits in a depression above non-porous ground, it's a vernal pool.

Here's a spring, where water is leaking out into the open; it hadn't rained here for weeks. This is on Daley Ranch, near Escondido.

Here is a vernal pool on MCAS Miramar; notice it is not down in a valley but up on the surface of level ground.

Here is another pool in Proctor Valley.

Someday there will be a test on this subject ...