User's Guide to the Dakota Aquifer in Kansas

Abstract

The Dakota aquifer system and its equivalents extend across much of the central North American continent. The contiguous aquifer system extends northward from Kansas approximately to the Arctic Circle in Canada, southward into northeastern New Mexico and the Oklahoma panhandle, westward to the Rocky Mountain front, and eastward to western Iowa and Minnesota. Across the Continental Divide, the Dakota aquifer is present in many of the intermontane basins. Thus, the Dakota is an important source of water in many areas of the North American continent.

Historically, the Dakota aquifer has generally been poorly understood in Kansas. Because of its complexity and limited use, our poorly documented experience with this source of water contains some truths but many misconceptions about the Dakota that have continued to the present. The purpose of this book is to educate Kansans about the Dakota aquifer as we know it today.

The user's guide contains two major sections. Part 1 describes the hydrogeology and water quality of the Dakota, and Part 2 is a discussion of its water resources.