Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: How large is Edward's Aquifer in Texas?
Located in South Central Texas, the Edwards Aquifer incorporates an area of approximately 4,350 square miles that extends into parts of 11 counties. The aquifer's boundaries begin at the groundwater divide in Kinney County, East of Brackettville, and extend Eastward through the San Antonio area and then Northeast where the aquifer boundary ends at the Leon River in Bell County. The aquifer is hydrologically separated into the Austin and San Antonio regions by a groundwater divide near the town of Kyle in Hays County.
The climate in Texas varies greatly across the state. Humid, rain-soaked swamps lie toward the east and desert lands lie in the far west. Woodlands, grasslands, brushland, and other ecological regions can be found in between and around the state. A prominent climatic feature of Texas is a "dry line" that runs north-south through its center. This line, though not entirely fixed in its location, represents a point east of which relatively moist air from the Gulf of Mexico flows freely, and west of which the drier air from the Mexican deserts prevails. The forest lands, of course, mostly lie to the east of this line though pockets of woodland can be found in the mountains to the west. Texas is periodically subjected to extreme droughts that can last several years, even as much as a decade. The most severe example in modern history was the 1950s drought that reshaped the state's economy. These drought periods are known to dramatically reduce the forests. The severe drought of 2011, for example, is estimated to have killed between two and ten percent of the state's trees.
Over the next century, climate in Texas could experience additional changes. For example, based on projections made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and results from the United Kingdom Hadley Centre’s climate model (HadCM2), a model that accounts for both greenhouse gases and aerosols, by 2100 temperatures in Texas could increase by about 3 °F (~1.7 °C) in spring (with a range of 1-6 °F) and about 4 °F (~2.2 °C) in other seasons (with a range of 1-9 °F). Texas emits more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any other state. And if Texas were a country, it would be the seventh-largest carbon dioxide polluter in the world . Texas's high carbon dioxide output and large energy consumption is primarily a result of large coal-burning power plants and gas-guzzling vehicles (low miles per gallon). Unless increased temperatures are coupled with a strong increase in rainfall, water could become more scarce. A warmer and drier climate would lead to greater evaporation, as much as a 35% decrease in streamflow, and less water for recharging groundwater aquifers. Climate change could reduce cotton and sorghum yields by 2-15% and wheat yields by 43-68%, leading to changes in acres farmed and production. With changes in climate, the extent and density of forested areas in east Texas could change little or decline by 50-70%. Hotter, drier weather could increase wildfires and the susceptibility of pine forests to pine bark beetles and other pests, which would reduce forests and expand grasslands and arid shrublands.
The large size of Texas and its location at the intersection of multiple climate zones gives the state highly variable weather. The Panhandle of the state has colder winters than North Texas, while the Gulf Coast has mild winters. Texas has wide variations in precipitation patterns. El Paso, on the western end of the state, averages of annual rainfall, while parts of southeast Texas average as much as per year. Dallas in the North Central region averages a more moderate per year.
Compared to the rest of the state, Southeast Texas' climate is warmer in winter and cooler in summer. On average, the region receives more rain than other parts of the state. This can increase the humidity level in the region. The relatively mild and wet climate is largely due to the influence of the Gulf of Mexico. Average annual rainfall in the Golden Triangle is 60 inches (1,500  mm). Rainfall totals in other parts of Southeast Texas are lower, but still in excess of 40inches (1,000  mm) per year. During Tropical Storm Claudette in 1979, the city of Alvin recorded an official 24-hour rainfall total of 42 inches (1,067 mm) — the highest one-day rainfall total ever measured in the United States. Nederland received 66 inches during Harvey.
The highest temperature ever measured in Texas was , recorded on August 12, 1936 in Seymour, during the 1936 North American Heatwave, and again on June 28, 1994 in Monahans. The lowest temperature ever measured in Texas was , recorded on February 8, 1933 in Seminole.
The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle is a huge impact on the weather in Texas. During the El Niño phase, the jet stream is located west-to-east across the southern portion of the United States. Therefore, winters in Texas are colder and receive more snowfall than normal. Texas is also less likely to get impacted by hurricanes due to the increased wind shear across the Atlantic. Spring to early summer yields increased rainfall especially where a low pressure system is located over the Four Corners region or northern Mexico which yields monsoon-like climate (which was exacerbated during the 2015 and 2016 spring season where the City of Houston was the hardest hit as if the climate was similar to Mumbai or Kolkata, India with heavy rainfall usually from moisture from the Gulf of Mexico). During the opposite phase, La Niña, the jet stream is much further north, therefore winter is milder and drier than normal. Hurricanes are more likely to impact Texas during La Niña due to decreased wind shear in the Atlantic. Droughts in Texas are much more likely during La Niña. The 2010-11 La Niña is mostly to blame for one of the worst droughts in Texas history.
Previously known as the College of Engineering, on July 11, 2007, the University of Texas at Austin renamed the College after 1936 graduate Ernest Cockrell Jr., whose family has over the past 30 years helped to build a $140 million endowment for the College.
The main campus is near the Richardson, Texas, Telecom Corridor, north of downtown Dallas, on the boundary of Dallas and Collin counties. UT Dallas owns generally contiguous land in Richardson, Texas consisting of approximately for campus development and another adjacent to the campus. UTD's Waterview Science & Technology Center and the Research and Operations Center, a leased building, are adjacent to the main campus, on the west side of Waterview Parkway in the Dallas, Texas city limits. UTD's Callier Center, 8 buildings, is on adjacent to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in the city of Dallas and nearby the Center for BrainHealth, a single building, on . UTD's artist residency CentralTrak is located East of downtown Dallas one block away from Fair Park. The city of Richardson, Texas passed a bond election on May 8, 2010, which allocated $2.8 million in funding for a UT Dallas loop road to connect the roads around campus. The loop road will be designed to help keep traffic contained within the campus, rather than on the city's roads. The "UTD Mercury" noted in a February 15, 2011 article that a lack of on-campus parking has been an ongoing problem. Additional parking lots were added in 2011 and 2012. However, due to the continued increase in enrollment, the lack of available parking spaces continues to be a frustrating issue for the students. Responding to continued enrollment growth the University of Texas System Board of Regents approved plans for three UTD parking structure to be completed by 2015. The five-story structures will add an additional 2,250 spaces. "The Princeton Review's Guide to 332 Green Colleges: 2014 Edition" recognized UTD for their green campus efforts.
The school mascot was Cory the Cougar until 2010, when the school decided to get a new mascot, "Eddie the Cougar"—the new name being a direct reference to Edwardsville. The number 57 on Eddie's jersey is in honor of the university's founding in 1957.
The Caspian Depression is below sea-level, consisting of large areas of marshlands in the eastern region. It is one of the largest flat lowland areas in Central Asia, covering approximately . The area is very rich in underground oil and gas reserves, and oil and natural gas pipelines cross the depression from north to south and east to west. Many geologists believe the Caspian Sea and the depression were formed by tectonic forces. Some of them also believe that the North Caspian depression became separated from the open ocean in ancient times to form an enormous salt lake. Part of the ancient Silk Road ran through this region. The two largest cities in the depression are Astrakhan in Russia, and Atyrau in Kazakhstan. Today, the region is used mainly for livestock raising.
In terms of area covered, the largest lake in California is the Salton Sea, a lake formed in 1905 which is now saline. It occupies in the southeast corner of the state, but because it is shallow it only holds about of water. Tulare Lake in the San Joaquin Valley was larger, at approximately , until it was drained during the later years of the nineteenth century.
In the U.S., the most well-known place for travertine formation is Yellowstone National Park, where the geothermal areas are rich in travertine deposits. Wyoming also has travertines in Hot Springs State Park in Thermopolis. Oklahoma has two parks dedicated to this natural wonder. Turner Falls, the tallest waterfall in Oklahoma, is a cascade of spring water flowing over a travertine cave. Honey Creek feeds this waterfall and creates miles of travertine shelves both up and downstream. Many small waterfalls upstream in the dense woods repeat the travertine-formation effect. The city of Davis now owns thousands of acres of this land and has made it a tourist attraction. Another travertine resource is in Sulphur, Oklahoma, east of Turner Falls. Travertine Creek flows through a spring-water nature preserve within the boundaries of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area.
Aquila () is a town in the southwest part of the Mexican state of Michoacán. It is 23 mi/43 km southeast of Tecoman. Its population was 1,915 in 2002. It is located at Latitude: 18°35'N Longitude: 103°31'W and at elevation 989 ft/510 m. It has harsh terrain. Agriculture consists of small farming, mainly for subsistence. There is one paved road south to Mexico Highway 200 (5 mi/11 km away).
The ranch has been surveyed by the United States Department of Agriculture for matters of preservation. Thirty cowboys, and about 120 people overall, are employed on the property. It has about 14,000 cows and bulls as well as 500 horses. It also includes 30,000 acres of arable land and about 1,100 producing oil wells. One of the lakes on the ranch provides water for the City of Wichita Falls.
Australia's oil shale resources are estimated at about 58 billion barrels, or 4,531 million tonnes of shale oil. The deposits are located in the eastern and southern states, with the greatest feasibility in the eastern Queensland deposits. Between 1862 and 1952, Australia mined four million tonnes of oil shale. The mining stopped when government support ceased. Since the 1970s, oil companies have been exploring possible reserves. From 2000 to 2004, the Stuart Oil Shale Project near Gladstone, Queensland produced over 1.5 million barrels of oil. The facility, in operable condition, is on care and maintenance and its operator (Queensland Energy Resources) is conducting research and design studies for the next phase of its oil-shale operations. A campaign by environmentalists opposed to the exploitation of oil-shale reserves may also have been a factor in its closure.
Chevé Cave ( ; ) is a deep cave located in the Sierra Juárez mountain range in the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca. As of 2003, its deepest point has been measured at deep, making it the second deepest known cavern in the Western Hemisphere and the world’s 12th deepest cave. The cave's deepest known point is nearly one vertical mile and seven horizontal miles from the entrance, ending in a terminal sump. The present limit of exploration in Chevé, at 9.3 kilometers from the nearest entrance, represents one of the most remote locations ever attained inside any cave on Earth. The logistics of reaching this point are enormous: more than two kilometers of rope need to be rigged and three underground camps established. Chevé is the deepest proven freshwater hydrological system in the world. Temperatures in Chevé are moderate, ranging from . It has been most thoroughly explored under the leadership of caver Bill Stone.
MacInnis led another series of dives in 1995 to salvage the bell from "Edmund Fitzgerald". The Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians backed the expedition by co-signing a loan in the amount of $250,000. Canadian engineer Phil Nuytten's atmospheric diving suit, known as the "Newtsuit," was used to retrieve the bell from the ship, replace it with a replica, and put a beer can in "Edmund Fitzgerald"s pilothouse. That same year, Terrence Tysall and Mike Zee set multiple records when they used trimix gas to scuba dive to "Edmund Fitzgerald". The pair are the only people known to have touched the "Edmund Fitzgerald" wreck. They also set records for the deepest scuba dive on the Great Lakes and the deepest shipwreck dive, and were the first divers to reach "Edmund Fitzgerald" without the aid of a submersible. It took six minutes to reach the wreck, six minutes to survey it, and three hours to resurface to avoid decompression sickness, also known as "the bends."
Hightower holds bachelor, master, and specialist degrees from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and a doctorate in Education Administration from St. Louis University.
A lifelong educator, he was the superintendent of Edwardsville, Illinois School District #7 (which includes Edwardsville High School) until he retired after the end of the 2014–15 school year, and he was formerly vice chairman of the Southern Illinois University Board of Trustees. He serves on the Boards of Directors for Lewis and Clark Community College in Godfrey and St. Anthony's Hospital in Alton. Among his non-sports awards, he received the 1990 Elijah P. Lovejoy Human Rights Award, the Illinois Jaycees 10 Outstanding Young Persons Award, the 1989 Illinois Distinguished Principals Award, 1993 Illinois Principal of the Year Award, and he was selected as the 2007 Trails West Distinguished Citizen of the Year.
The Climate of Beaumont, Texas covers the averages and extremes in past weather seen within the city of Beaumont, Texas. The city is within the humid subtropical climate regime, and is within the Piney Woods region of eastern Texas. The area around Beaumont receives the most rainfall in the state: more than annually. Summers in the area are usually hot and humid, due to the moisture that flows inland off of the Gulf of Mexico. Winters are usually kept mild by the warm gulf waters. Hurricanes also pose a threat to the area. Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Hurricane Rita in 2005, and Hurricane Ike in 2008 were the most recent significant storms to strike.
There are developed and potential oil and gas fields on the Navajo Nation. The oldest and largest group of fields is in the Paradox Basin in the Four Corners area. Most of these fields are located in the Aneth Extension in Utah but there are a few wells in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. The first well was drilled in the Aneth Extension in 1956. In 2006 the Paradox Basin fields were injected with water and Co2 to increase declining production. There are also wells in the Checkerboard area in New Mexico that are on leased land owned by individual Navajos.
Texas Rising is a 2015 History Channel 10-hour television miniseries based on the Texas Revolution against Mexico and how the Texas Rangers were created. It is directed by Roland Joffé and premiered on May 25, 2015. The series stars Bill Paxton, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Ray Liotta, Brendan Fraser, Olivier Martinez and Cynthia Addai-Robinson.
Encompassing an area of 8 counties across south-central Texas including the City of San Antonio and its surrounding communities, the Edwards Aquifer is the main water supply source for the region, providing water for agricultural and industrial purposes and necessary water flow for endangered species habitat, as well as recreational purposes. As a result of a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club under the Federal Endangered Species Act in 1991, the Edwards Aquifer Authority (EAA) was created to oversee the aquifer in its conservation efforts.
Approximately 70 million years ago, activity of tectonic plates caused a revival of the Rocky Mountains. As these tectonic processes were occurring, millions of tons of sediments were deposited by alluvial and fluvial processes across Texas. The tremendous weight of these sediments resulted in faulting between the Edwards Plateau and the Gulf. The main geologic unit, known as the Edwards Limestone, is tilted downward toward the south and east and is overlain by younger limestone layers as well as several thousand feet of sediments. The Edwards Aquifer is a group of limestones and is considered a highly heterogenic aquifer. Three stratigraphic columns across the San Antonio area represent the Edwards Aquifer. These stratigraphic units are known as the Maverick Basin. the Devils River Trend, and the San Marcos Platform.
The Edwards Aquifer is one of the most prolific artesian aquifers in the world. Located on the eastern edge of the Edwards Plateau in the U.S. state of Texas, it is the source of drinking water for two million people, and is the primary water supply for agriculture and industry in the aquifer’s region. In addition, the Edwards Aquifer feeds the Comal and San Marcos springs, provides springflow for recreational and downstream uses in the Nueces, San Antonio, Guadalupe, and San Marcos river basins, and is home to several unique and endangered species.
In the Edwards aquifer, groundwater flow models have been developed for the San Antonio and Barton Springs aquifer segments in the San Antonio region of Texas. Two model simulations were conducted: steady state and transient. A steady-state groundwater flow model requires magnitude and direction of flow remain constant, whereas a transient model simulation allows for a change in water storage over time. Steady-state results suggest water leaving the aquifer occurs through springs (73.3 percent), water well pumping (25.7 percent), and to the Colorado River (0.6 percent). Inflow of water to the aquifer mostly occurs through natural recharge (93.5 percent) and water delivered through the aquifer’s regional boundaries (6.5 percent). The transient simulation model also suggests discharge primarily occurs through springs, followed by water well pumping; however, changes in water storage is heavily dependent upon the amount of monthly precipitation and water well pumping volumes.