1 min readScience & Engineering

Mapping groundwater from the air

Low-flying helicopters help map underground freshwater resources and forecast saltwater intrusion along the Monterey Bay.

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Ker Than

Stanford Earth’s Rosemary Knight recently spearheaded a project to map underground freshwater resources and forecast the intrusion of saltwater into aquifers beneath the California coastal town of Marina. The project, a collaboration between Stanford, the Marina Coast Water District, and Aqua Geo Frameworks, involved a low-flying helicopter towing a giant, instrument-laden fiberglass hoop that generated ground-probing magnetic fields that penetrated 1,000 feet beneath the surface.