Partial Penetration

What is it?

The ‘Partial Penetration’ options for the Top Elevation and Bottom Elevation (‘Bot Elevation’) allow zone features to partially penetrate a prescribed thickness of the aquifer. For example, users may wish to restrict a contaminant source to the topmost portion of the aquifer system, insert a “clay lens” of lower hydraulic conductivity at some locations in the subsurface, or differentiate different hydrostratigraphic units (vertical layers) in the aquifer.

How to use it:

Check the radio box(es) next to ‘Top Elevation’ and/or ‘Bot Elevation:’ to apply partial penetration elevation extents for the top and bottom elevation of the zone feature, respectively. If one of the boxes is left unchecked, the domain-wide inputs will be used

The extents can be calculated using: 1) a constant elevation; 2) the percentage of aquifer thickness; or 3) with scatter points containing known elevations at discrete locations. The default values of ‘99999’ mean that the elevation will be extracted from the domain-wide elevation inputs. Enter different values in the text boxes provided to use values different than the domain-wide inputs.