What are bedrock ground-water resources?
Subsurface water that fills the spaces between particles of rock and soil, or in fractures in solid rock, is called ground water. An aquifer is a subsurface water supply which yields useful quantities of ground water to wells and springs. There are two types of aquifers in Maine: surficial materials and fractured bedrock. Maine’s bedrock has been metamorphosed and recrystallized, and the original porosity between mineral grains has been eliminated. In a bedrock aquifer, ground water is stored in fractures in the rock, and areas with a large number of fractures may contain significant amounts of water. Fractures are sufficiently abundant to provide enough water for a single-family home most everywhere in Maine, and most self-supplied domestic water supplies are wells drilled in bedrock.
