• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.235-246
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• 2009

High-saline ground water, whose eclectrical conductivity value ranges from 12,000 to 21,000 $\mu$S/cm, occurs at the small catchment of Gilsan stream near Geum-river estuary dike. These high-saline ground water comes form three different aquifers consisting of two horizons of sand sediments and one weathered zone with top part of unconformity. For these three aquifers showing mutual independence in terms of hydrogeological and hydrogeochemical connection, we examined characteristics of aqifer occurrences and their water chemistry, and observed and analyzed the fluctuations of the ground water level and electrical conductivity. Our study results indicate that the high-saline characteristics of ground water in this study area should not come from dynamic recent seawater intrusion, but might be due to the fossil saline water included and isolated within the paleo-sediments or weathered zone and their upper unconformity part. This high-saline water seems to be now partially mixed and affected by freshwater in the higher inland reach of Gilsan stream.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.671-687
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• 2022

It has been reported that about 47% of groundwater wells within 10 km from the coastline in the western/southern coastal areas of Korea were affected by seawater. It has been interpreted that the cause of groundwater salinization is seawater intrusion. The Gilsan stream in the Seocheon area was a tidal stream until the Geumgang estuary dam was constructed and operated. Therefore, it is likely that the Gilsan stream catchment was deposited with sediments containing high-saline formation water prior to the use of landfill farmland at this catchment area. The groundwater in this study area showed EC values ranging from 111 to 21,000 µS/cm, and the water quality types were diverse including Ca(or Na)-HCO₃, Ca(or Na)-HCO₃(Cl), Na-Cl(HCO₃), Na-Cl types. It is believed that this diversity of water quality is due to the mixing of seawater and fresh groundwater generated by infiltration of precipitation and surface water through soil and weathered part. In this study, we discussed whether this water quality diversity and the presence of saline groundwater are due to present seawater intrusion or to remnant high-saline pore water in sediments during flushing out process. For this, rain water, surface water, seawater, and groundwater were compared regarding the water quality characteristics, tritium content, oxygen/hydrogen stable isotopic composition, and ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratio. The oxygen/hydrogen stable isotopic compositions indicated that water composition of saline groundwaters with large EC values are composed of a mixture of those of fresh groundwater and surface water. Also, the young groundwater estimated by tritium content has generally higher NO₃ content. All these characteristics showed that fresh groundwater and surface water have continued to affect the high-saline groundwater quality in the study area. In addition, considering the deviation pattern in the diagrams of Na/Cl ratio versus Cl content and SAR (sodium adsorption ratio) versus Cl content, in which two end members of fresh surface-ground water and seawater are assumed, it is interpreted that the groundwater in the study area is not experiencing present seawater intrusion, but flush out and retreating from ancient saline formation water.