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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

New Orleans Geological Society

Abstract


Geology and Hydrogeology of Northeastern Yucatan, 1978
Pages 229-261

Hydrogeochemistry of the Northern Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico with A Section on Mayan Water Practices1

William Back, Bruce B. Hanshaw

ABSTRACT

The flat, low-lying northern Yucatan Peninsula is composed of extensive outcrops of Tertiary limestone. Elevations range from sea-level to about 50 m. Areas of thin soil cover are interspersed with bare limestone outcrops. The area receives between 500 and 1500 mm of rainfall per year, but the high porosity and permeability coupled with thin soil cover cause the potentiometric surface to be only a few meters above sea-level throughout most of the area. Chemical character of the ground-water is controlled regionally by solution of carbonate and sulfate minerals and by mixing with a body of salt water that is believed to be a few tens of meters below land surface throughout the area studied. Contamination by sewage may also be locally important.

This article also discusses aspects of ancient Mayan water systems and the importance of water in the Mayan culture. Present-day water systems and some problems of salt water and sewage contamination are described.


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