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r2k-in-the-vortex t1_j6dyp75 wrote

Pretty much. Sure there are places where there is no groundwater and you simply hit bedrock, but those are rather rare. Most of the world, if you have soil, you have groundwater. You just need to dig deep enough.

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fox-mcleod t1_j6ew9lr wrote

And if you do hit bedrock, just keep going. Almost all landmass is opposite an ocean on the other side. There’s only something like 1000 square kilometers of land overlapping with land on the other side of the earth.

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notsowisemonk t1_j6futpu wrote

No, don’t dig after bedrock or you’ll fall under the map brainiac

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BSixe t1_j6g2xhd wrote

“Brainiac” haha haven’t heard that in forever I love it

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Unkindlake t1_j6gia6s wrote

And if you dig deep enough you can jump in the hole and the momentum will carry you into the air in China, then you fall back though over and over again until someone slides a trampoline over the hole when you pop out

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yoshhash t1_j6i8nbw wrote

Technically you would not pop out the other end. You would have just enough momentum to barely reach that point, even less due to air resistance, so you would need something to grab you out.

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milkytrizzle93 t1_j6eyid8 wrote

You realise that Earth's oceans simply sit on top of the planet? The whole planet isn't made of water with land floating on top of it. If you dig down through the earth, unless you're on top of a cave system or underground reservoir you will keep digging through solid material until you reach the mantle. At that point you would be long dead from heat exposure from the core of the planet which is a molten hot compressed ball of iron

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fox-mcleod t1_j6eyqd0 wrote

> You realise that Earth's oceans simply sit on top of the planet? The whole planet isn't made of water with land floating on top of it.

Yes? Maybe you don’t get what I’m saying.

> If you dig down through the earth, unless you're on top of a cave system or underground reservoir you will keep digging through solid material until you reach the mantle.

And then? What will happen if you keep going?

> At that point you would be long dead from heat exposure from the core of the planet which is a molten hot compressed ball of iron

Lol. Yeah. This is an r/whoosh

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milkytrizzle93 t1_j6eyxdr wrote

I'm autistic, I heavily rely on the /s lol

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Kind_Profession4988 t1_j6fqqx3 wrote

FYI, I'm not autistic and typically have a pretty dry sense of humor, and I still had no clue that was a joke.

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SGrumpy t1_j6hws5y wrote

If your sense of humour is that dry, maybe you should keep digging for water.

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fox-mcleod t1_j6ezqm4 wrote

Ah I see!

Well that makes sense. Yes, I was saying this “tongue in cheek” — stating the amusing fact that almost all of the earth’s land is opposite an ocean while making light of the humorous idea of digging a well through the entirety of the earth’s crust.

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legendofthegreendude t1_j6f2n65 wrote

You got to admit, that would be one hell of a well if you pulled it off

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milkytrizzle93 t1_j6fbute wrote

You'd definitely be well supplied with water

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n1nj4zftw t1_j6fe7b2 wrote

Well done.

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big_sugi t1_j6fj0pv wrote

After that geothermal energy cooks you, you’d definitely be well done

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Bowlboy1914 t1_j6fmcbl wrote

You guys are really driving this thing into the dirt, its getting boring. Oh well.

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CyberneticPanda t1_j6glvc2 wrote

The guy you are responding to is joking, but the whole planet is kind of made of water with land floating on it. It's not just water though; it's rock that is saturated with water. There is a lot of water in the crust, then the upper mantle is pretty dry, but 400 km deep there is a lot of water, possibly more than in all the oceans combined. It's the boundary between the outer mantle and the inner mantle. That transition zone is about 7% of the Earth's mass and probably between 1 and 3% of it is water. That puts it at 1.5 to 4.5 times as much water as there is in the crust.

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Maximum-Mixture6158 t1_j6gs965 wrote

That just up and stops periodically, like last week. Stanley Tucci to the rescue!

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Saint_D420 t1_j6eywy0 wrote

I’m from rural country land and everyone’s has well water there, pretty rare your in an area where you can’t hit water

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Roobar76 t1_j6g4tb9 wrote

There’s a bit of confirmation bias there. Rural areas developed where there was water and didn’t where there wasn’t. So where there is a long farming history there is generally surface or ground water, and the bits that ended up in national parks/reserves it’s either deeper or not there.

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CyberneticPanda t1_j6gm8w7 wrote

Not really true. In the 19th century people in Congress believe that" rain followed the plow" and God would bring rain to the west if people turned it into farms. They let people homestead places like Arizona and it went terribly for the homesteaders. Later they spent lots of money on water projects to bring water to the places that needed it. But by that time the holdings have been consolidated and the homesteaders who survived had sold their holdings for next to nothing.

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milkytrizzle93 t1_j6ez51e wrote

The comment I replied to was (jokingly) insinuating you could take water from the ocean on the other side of the planet. I understand ground water is plentiful

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JDTexas84 t1_j6g2td3 wrote

The deepest anyone has ever been able to dig is about 8 miles. Every team that has tried has hit an impenetrable barrier keeping them from digging beyond this.

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blanchasaur t1_j6g7k5u wrote

It's not so much an impenetrable barrier but it just gets way too hot down that far. The rock starts acting more like a liquid at higher temperatures and fills in the hole. The drill breaks down faster too.

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ManyCarrots t1_j6h0vck wrote

Please tell me you dont actually think there is an impenetrable barrier

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magic_cartoon t1_j6etsfl wrote

There is a lot of groundwater in different types of bedrocks, and largest aquifers are usually consist of sediment bedrock like limestones.

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CyberneticPanda t1_j6gk8v9 wrote

There are toooooons of places where you hit bedrock before water. You can dig a well anywhere and get to water but it's not economical to do it in places that you have to drill through hundreds of feet of rock.

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mostlygray t1_j6el3jm wrote

You literally just kind of dig around until you find water. It's down there. There are surface markers that will clue you in to where water is. A tree where there are no other trees. A low area. A gut feeling. A place where the plants are different.

It took my great-grandparents years to find a spot for the well on their property. They used a cistern for many years for drinking and the ravine for watering the animals. Eventually, they found good water. They just had to dig enough holes.

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crono141 t1_j6fdor8 wrote

Should have tried dowsing. Would have found it lots faster.

/s in case it isn't obvious.

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Jammin-91 t1_j6fs2aw wrote

What's dowsing?

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nebman227 t1_j6fst27 wrote

Holding two "dowsing rods" in your hands and letting them "lead" you to groundwater. It doesn't work, of course. The reason that it looks like it works is the fact mentioned in other comments that there is groundwater pretty much everywhere.

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Jammin-91 t1_j6ftopg wrote

Ahh, I see. I'm sure this works, and if you can't find "dowsing rods," you can grab a tree branch that has a "Y" shape, and this can function as "dowsing rods"

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mostlygray t1_j6g3z7z wrote

They did try hiring a water witch. That didn't work.

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MrEZW t1_j6iy80d wrote

There are people out there who believe in this shit so much that they'd trust their job with it. I worked with a foreman who believed he could locate buried utilities like phone lines, power lines, water pipes, etc... with some dowsing rods he made out or #4 copper wire. Sometimes he would even second guess the locators markings & dowse them just to make sure. Those guys use specialized machines to locate buried utilities. I never had the heart to tell him & I just played along with it.

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GamerMomm t1_j6goa34 wrote

From ranching/farming folk and can confirm that this method works.

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Tashus t1_j6jfa53 wrote

>can confirm that this method works.

No you can't. Unless you dug wells everywhere the dousing rods didn't indicate, so that you could check that there wasn't water there, then all you've done is dig wells roughly at random, or with some intuition based on geography and flora.

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GamerMomm t1_j6kkh5o wrote

It worked on our lands, for sure. We don’t own the land anymore, but on the 4000+ hectares we had it sure as shit did. Up until the early 2000s, we still paid a water witch and he sure AF helped us dig our wells.

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Tashus t1_j6kmcll wrote

No, it didn't. You dug wells and found water, but you could have dug them in the places that it didn't indicate, and you probably would have also found water. It's nonsense.

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GamerMomm t1_j6kuqyf wrote

Yes, we did.

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Tashus t1_j6kut1j wrote

You did what?

Edit: You've blocked me. I get it. But truly, dousing doesn't work. Dig a hole, and you'll usually hit water. Yes, a douser can tell you "dig here", and lo and behold you'll hit water. You would also be likely to hit water if you dig the places where they don't tell you to dig.

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Tratix t1_j6lbs0t wrote

And then what? It’s just a pocket of water? Is it in the dirt and you have to extract it? Do you need a pump? Does it replenish? Is it not packed with bacteria?

The concept of an underwater well just doesn’t make sense to me

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mostlygray t1_j6mhn9g wrote

Ideally the water is coming from a free-flowing aquifer. You dig down a few hundred feet. Sometimes the water is sitting on top of the rock. Sometimes it's below. Sometimes it's in a mix of gravel. It could be 100 feet down, it could be 1,000 feet down. It depends on where the water is.

If the water is from an artesian well, it could be coming from a thousand miles away through the bedrock from the mountains. It could be refilled from rain water that leaks down through the water table. It could be from underground streams.

Unless the water is very shallow, there shouldn't be any bacterial contamination. You test the water to see that it's safe to drink. You're looking for bacteria, heavy metals, pesticide runoff, that sort of thing.

My parents well is about 400 feet down. Through the bedrock. The water is from an underground stream and comes up through the cracks in the rock and keeps the field next door always wet, even in a dry year. The water is high in iron but doesn't have heavy metal contamination to speak off. The copper/nickle is closer to the surface in the clay. The clay is full of iron too. At about 6 feet down, the clay has enough iron in it that a magnet sticks to it. Below that, it's a neutral gray clay that goes down to pea gravel, then bedrock. You can get water out of the gravel, but the refill time would be ridiculous so you pull from below it.

All that clay and rock acts like a filter to keep contaminates out of your drinking water.

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PD_31 t1_j6e3vo0 wrote

The water table and aquifers can be found underground. Exactly where and how good they are will depend on a lot of things, such as rainfall, underground river flows, types of rocks and how porous they are (how easy it is for water to move through the rocks).

There's a lot that goes into it and the best place to dig would be where the rock or soil is easiest to shift and the most water is closest to the surface.

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Doctor_Expendable t1_j6feyru wrote

There is a lot that goes into it. There's an entire branch of science called hydrogeology that is quite complex. There is a lot of high level math involved in being able to accurately predict groundwater flow.

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GoldenAura16 t1_j6g0of1 wrote

Sounds like something I need to learn then never get to use, my favorite hobby.

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Doctor_Expendable t1_j6g8ivt wrote

While you can learn it as a hobby, I did go to college for it and worked more or less for 90 hours a week for 2 years straight.

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nayhem_jr t1_j6h1e5x wrote

… and how much was already removed by humans

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what_tha_blank t1_j6iibqq wrote

It’s not finite, it gets put back through the water cycle.

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nayhem_jr t1_j6jh4gz wrote

Yes, closer to a geologic timescale. Some of the groundwater we’ve extracted won’t be returning in our lifetime, especially where compaction is a factor.

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Any-Broccoli-3911 t1_j6e7eb3 wrote

No.

Here is a map of groundwater.

https://www.livescience.com/52965-groundwater-resources-map.html

For the light blue, there's less than 1 meter worth of water under ground, and it can be 0, so there wouldn't be any water if you dig a well.

You just have to dig as deep as you get to stones you can't dig through or you get to the water line. Typically, you can dig only through sediments, so if you are somewhere will very little sediments like a shield, you wouldn't need to dig a lot to realize you can't dig more and you can't get a well.

Typically someone will try to dig a well first. If it works, other people will dig well nearby. The water line is typically at around the same level in nearby places.

The West of the US has a lot of groundwater as you can see on the map. That's because there's a lot of snow and rain in the water, and most of it get underground rather than in rivers.

Places that don't have groundwater or rivers or lakes have typically no inhabitants.

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pm_me_your_rigs t1_j6ekpf1 wrote

So that map has pretty good quantities of underground water in California yet California goes through droughts every year

So where is the deviation coming from here? Obviously if there was enough water they would be digging down deep enough to get it? Is it just cost prohibitive to dig down deep enough and clean it

Or does that map only show certain times of the year

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Any-Broccoli-3911 t1_j6eladp wrote

They dig to get the water. That's how they use so much water in California's farms.

California is the state that uses the most water. 9% of the water used in the USA is used in California. (It has 12% of the population, so per capita, it's not that much, but it's still a lot of water that gets used in California.)

https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/total-water-use#overview

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nim_opet t1_j6f13j1 wrote

Gotta water all those almonds!

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alaninnz t1_j6f89to wrote

Some of these areas have dropped 20+ feet due to wells for the almond groves.

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Hayduke_Abides t1_j6gm00k wrote

This is also true in the Ogallala Aquifer which underlies large areas of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas (and other aquifers around the world as well). This isn't a problem unique to California.

In many places, the groundwater withdrawals are outstripping the rate at which these groundwater reservoirs can be replenished by precipitation. Dryer and warmer climates are exacerbating this problem as well. As the interstitial spaces in the aquifers are depleted of water, they lose the structural strength that the water provided and subside. The worst thing is that these losses of interstitial space are likely permanent, so even if the aquifer is re-watered, it will have a lower capacity than it used to have.

We are heavily reliant on groundwater in the US for agriculture and municipal water, and unsustainable groundwater use is a serious problem that is largely overlooked by the media and unfamiliar to most Americans.

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alaninnz t1_j6gzkcu wrote

How anyone thinks this is sustainable is beyond me.

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Warp-n-weft t1_j6g00hs wrote

It is worth noting that underground water isn’t necessarily a renewable resource.

Large amounts of water can be found underground in aquifers but that water can be old. Potentially hundreds of thousands of years old, deposited during the Pleistocene and it’s impressive ice age.

We can, and do, pump ancient water out to use today. But that water may not be able to recharge. Worse is if we experience subsidence of the aquifer. By withdrawing water we shrink the size of the container (the aquifer) and it potential volume cannot be increased. In some places in California the ground has subsided due to water extraction at a rate of a foot annually.

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thecaledonianrose t1_j6e0jjk wrote

For the most part, though there are no guarantees at what depth you will hit water, the rate of flow, or the quality of the water when you reach it - the level at which the local aquifer exists varies wildly. Wells can go upwards of over a thousand feet down without finding water. In some places, because the drilling can actually clog aquifers, they'll try hydrofracking to increase rate of flow. And sometimes, people are lucky - they have artesian wells that provide an abundance of water that naturally flows to the surface thanks to the rock formations in that area.

Before a driller gets started on a well, they'll check local water tables, the geology of the area, examine previous wells drilled in that neighborhood to determine at what depths water was discovered, what the average well depth is, and ensure that Call Before You Dig has been out to mark the area with possible underground hazards (cable, power, gas, fiber, sewer, etc). On occasion, they'll blast if drilling where the bedrock is particularly thick (such as granite).

My father and grandfather worked in the water well industry for over 30 years and both have agreed that while dowsing is by no means a perfect process, it can work in the correct hands. A lot of times, my father was able to look at an address and determine the approximate depth the well would need to be, take an estimated guess at the quality so that he could then design a pump and storage system to maximize the well's production.

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evil_burrito t1_j6fb0o3 wrote

They didn't (and don't) just dig randomly. You're more likely to find water at a lower spot on the terrain than a higher spot. The type and amount of growth is a tipoff, too. Plants like blackberries love water and are a good indicator of an available source, for example.

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Einaiden t1_j6dzlx2 wrote

Pretty much just dig, there are hints as to where you are more likely to find underground water so you look for areas where more plants grow; especially deep-rooted ones. There are other hints as well but nothing concrete until the development of ground penetrating radar and other deep scanning techniques.

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Wild_Top1515 t1_j6f86wg wrote

they went to the bottom of a valley in wet looking areas and dug.. but yea.. its not always that easy.. where i grew up the ground water was 700 feet down..

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nichogenius t1_j6ge212 wrote

They would hire a water witch who would walk around with a forked stick AKA dowsing. It's basically a superstitious practice to try to find ground water ... which just doesn't hold water.

It's not where to dig for water, but how deep you have to dig to find water at any given place.

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sharrrper t1_j6ghp71 wrote

>can you dig a well anywhere and hit water

Just about. Usually just a question of how deep. This is how "water dowsers" usually work just FYI. They don't actually do anything it's just kind of hard to fail.

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thecaledonianrose t1_j6gqc73 wrote

Not true. I've worked at houses where five different wells were drilled to 1500 feet and never got more than 0.10 gpm flow rate in any of them, which isn't really enough to support a home. That's when you get into the complicated stuff - a system that draws from each well to a point, creating a storage reserve, switches that sense lack water and turn off so the pump motor doesn't burn out.

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sharrrper t1_j6gqx1y wrote

I said hard, not impossible. I have no doubt there are individual places that have had difficulty getting a well going. That doesn't change the fact that most of the time you can drill wherever and likely hit something. Historically speaking especially.

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thecaledonianrose t1_j6jkrk9 wrote

Mm, true. And it isn't as if you limited it to 'potable water,' strictly speaking.

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Cerdy-wiggles-227 t1_j6kp9vr wrote

I drill wells for a living from time to time and not every time is water gaurenteed. Our company has been drilling in the same area for 50 years or so, so we know roughly where we have no chance of hitting water and there are fairly large patches of land we wont waste our time on. Each company will have their own limits based on the rig and equipment, we can drill 620ft or so before we wont drill anymore.

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Hanginon t1_j6f7nom wrote

The very early settlers settled where water was actually available, or easily accessed. Along rivers small or large lakes, anywhere that offered or indicated water. Later settlements/settlers and ranchers could take the time, energy and technology to dig, but there are a lot of environmental clues on where that would be. Lower areas and low areas with an unusual amount of long term plants like trees were usually a pretty good place to sink a well and then build a windmill to pump the water out.

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deadmanbehindthemask t1_j6fe62f wrote

Our well is 900' deep. At least in this area, the driller said it wouldn't really matter where on the property he drilled (and it is a pretty big property). I get the impression that around here the geology that would dictate where/how deep the water is is on a much larger scale than property boundaries.

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Cheerio13 t1_j6gij4i wrote

In the 1940s, my grandfather used a divining rod (dowsing rod) to find the location to drill a well on his property in South Dakota. Yep, he hit water.

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Tashus t1_j6jfxdb wrote

Did he also drill wells everywhere that the rod didn't indicate? You know, to demonstrate that there was no water there and that the rod actually worked?

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Additional-Rhubarb-8 t1_j6f1qys wrote

It all depends on.. the amount of water you need, the quality of water, contamination by man or natural. If you need clean drinking water it's a good idea to go through a couple aquifers, to find the cleanest possible water. You could driĺ and hit water pit also a methan pocket at the same time, don't want to drink that. Over time local drillers have accumulated knowledge on there local geology and have a very good understanding where water is.

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blkhatwhtdog t1_j6heeki wrote

You need to be observant of the land and the vegetation.

You see some trees, there's probably water closer to the surface than anywhere else.

And oddly enough 'divining rods' do work. I saw this guy from the water dept walking across the lawn with this bent coat hanger in his hands. I asked WTF he said he was looking for water leaks from the main. when I asked him what the hell that does, he had me walk around the yard with it loosely in my hand, sure enough it moved, he pointed out that I was standing between the house and the water meter, that would be where our water pipe comes in....again I walked back and when it moved again, he said that's where SFEK... that's where Damnit again.... that's where the sewer pipe would be.

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LucyZastrow t1_j6icuv7 wrote

We called them “witching sticks” too. And yes they work. If the hands of a skilled person they would lead the user to land that was disturbed or not solid- usually because of water. I have a dear friend who has taught people how to use them. It’s awesome to watch.

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Tashus t1_j6jg0n7 wrote

>We called them “witching sticks” too. And yes they work.

No they don't.

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ButterMyBean t1_j6dyf9a wrote

There is water somewhere beneath your feet no matter where on Earth you live. Groundwater starts as precipitation, just as surface water does, and once water penetrates the ground, it continues moving, sometimes quickly and sometimes very slowly.

I'm not sure about the other questions tho. But when my parents were building their house they hired a "water witch" and she did the dowsing and found a spring where they put their well house.

I know that water dowsing is controversial but that's just my experience.

−3

Way2Foxy t1_j6e00rn wrote

> water dowsing is controversial

Weird how people say "controversial" when pretending like witchcraft is real in any other situation is immediately laughable.

When dowsers are successful, it's because they take cues from the landscape. Not a funny twig and some magic.

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scratch_post t1_j6f43un wrote

Yup, the two sticks are just a distraction, a slight of hand to make you wonder what magic they're using and thus don't have to share the knowledge.

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r2k-in-the-vortex t1_j6dzts0 wrote

There is no real controversy to it, it's hogwash. Its walking around with a stick and pointing at a random point on property. It doesn't matter which part of your property you dig, there is or there isn't groundwater to be had, 100m here or there makes no difference. There usually is though, so seemingly the water witch is almost always validated. Nobody digs at all the other places the witch doesn't point to in order to check if maybe those have water at the same depth too.

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Radzila t1_j6e7ms4 wrote

I like how you said it was just your experience but everyone is taking it like you are saying that's the only way to go.

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imgroxx t1_j6eh82k wrote

No, they're saying dowsing is a myth, meaning even a single claimed experience is incorrect, and it's in fact something else. Like prior experience in an area (aquifers are rather large, so knowledge works for quite a distance), or knowing common geological patterns.

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Additional-Rhubarb-8 t1_j6f0ksp wrote

Every experienced driller I've met (many dozens) uses dowsing rods. They use it on conjuction with other tricks of the trade but it used.

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Tashus t1_j6jfmcm wrote

Most people I know say "bless you" after someone sneezes. Do you think that keeps the sneezing person healthy?

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waterwitch80 t1_j6fh9qz wrote

May not be very scientific but dowsing works. I've seen it done but can't explain how it works. If you're someone with the ability you can take a forked branch, or some people use L shaped metal rods. A douser or waterwitch walks along and when they cross water the rods cross or the branch rotates to point down. I've personally witnessed someone find a triple well by dousing. When the people came to drill and hit the first stream they continued and hit second stream, kept drilling and hit the third stream.

−7

a_bear_there_was t1_j6fyfz3 wrote

It demonstrably doesn't work.

Well, it "works" in the same way that a Ouija board works. There's a person in control of when the rods cross, just like there are human(s) in control of the planchette on a Ouija board. It's very easy for a person to influence the movements of both, without necessarily being conscious that they are doing so.

Inevitably, the person who is holding the rods has some idea of where to find water. Like others have pointed out, there are hints on the surface, like trees and plants, even the shape of the terrain. Once they have an idea of where to look, it's very easy to make the rods cross at that point.

And if there's not water there, then there's always an excuse. "The energy was not good that day." "There's an underground stream, but it's dried up now." "There is water, but you didn't dig deep enough." etc.

And of course, they almost always find *some* water because there's water nearly everywhere if you dig deep enough. And confirmation bias being what it is, they will always point to their successes as evidence that dowsing works, and their failures are just times where they did it wrong.

Again, they may not even realize that they're doing this. They may really believe it's magic.

Some don't of course. Some people are just charlatans. But there are plenty of true believers too.

Whichever they are, they don't have a real ability. Every time we run a properly controlled experiment, they do no better than random chance.

The James Randi Foundation used to do these tests, offering a million dollars to anyone who could demonstrate any one of a number of abilities (dowsing included). No one has ever successfully passed even the preliminary tests.

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waterwitch80 t1_j6geiit wrote

Not and get results.

−1

Hayduke_Abides t1_j6go5bv wrote

Dowsing is as legit as tarot cards, astrology, and palm-reading. They hit often enough to fool the gullible.

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cyanrarroll t1_j6gjhk5 wrote

Underground streams are a myth (except those that are literally rivers in caves). Water just kind of permeates everywhere underground and slowly moves towards lower elevation openings to leave as surface waters. Dowsing works as well as asking a frog to jump toward the direction of underground water, and then flipping a coin on whether or not you'll agree to it.

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Hayduke_Abides t1_j6gngv7 wrote

You are partly correct, large amounts of water do move through the pore spaces in rock. However, in addition to that type of flow, almost all rock formations have a network of cracks and fractures, and water often moves preferentially along these pathways. How much porous flow vs fracture flow you get in an aquifer depends on the nature of the rock and the degree of fracturing in the aquifer. In wells, intersecting a few good fractures can be the difference between a productive well and one that does not produce sufficient flow to be useful.

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cyanrarroll t1_j6gpxwn wrote

True but not necessarily useful since most groundwater tables, especially where most humans live, is significantly higher than bedrock.

1