Offshore Stratigraphic Controls on Salt-Water Intrusion in Los Angeles Area Coastal Aquifers

Ground water is a major component of the water supply for the ~10 million residents of Los Angeles County. Ground water pumping, linked to population growth since the early 1900's, caused water levels to decline, reversed seaward hydraulic gradients in some coastal aquifers, and resulted in salt water intrusion. United States Geological Survey geologists and hydrologists are working cooperatively with local water agencies to (1) understand and model the process of salt-water intrusion in this siliciclastic, structurally complex basin, and (2) identify potential pathways for the salt-water intrusion. We collected over 2000 trackline-km of single- and multi-channel intermediate- and high-resolution seismic-reflection profiles (60 to 5000 Hz) from the Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbor complex and the adjacent San Pedro shelf to develop a 3-dimensional stratigraphic model of the coastal aquifer system. These data define stratal geometries, paleo-channels, and fault traces in the offshore that are potential pathways of salt-water intrusion. The offshore seismic-reflection profiles correlate with onshore geophysical and borehole data collected from four nearby drill sites that were cored continuously to depths ranging to 400 meters. These core holes provide detailed 1-dimensional reference sections that furnish stratigraphic, age, and facies control for the seismic-reflection profiles. The coastal aquifer system is described using sequence stratigraphic concepts as units deposited during eustatic sea level fluctuations during the Pleistocene to Recent. Seismic-reflection profiles identify sequence boundaries, and hence aquifer and aquitard units, by the truncation and onlap of reflectors. If and where the sequences crop out on the sea floor provides a potential pathway for intrusion. The youngest unit, the Gaspur aquifer, is intruded with salt water and consists of at least two flat-lying sequences, each marked by basal gravelly sands deposited by the ancestral Los Angeles River as part of a broad channel complex. Salt water migrates up the Gaspur channel and into the underlying Gage aquifer that is comprised mostly of shallow marine and tidal sands, silts, and clays. Beneath the Gage, the Pleistocene San Pedro Formation consists of an aggradational set of marine-deltaic sands that thicken offshore and develop clinoform beds infilling the Palos Verdes basin. How these units are connected hydraulically controls the flow of salt water. We are incorporating the offshore seismic and onshore core data in a regional groundwater flow simulation model for the Los Angeles basin and in a transport model emphasizing salt-water intrusion.