Bruce B.

Hanshaw
C h e m i c a l m a s s - w a s t i n g o f t h e n o r t h e r n w m i a m Back
U.S. Geological Survey
Y u c a t a n P e n i n s u l a b y g r o u n d w a t e r d i s s o l u t i o n 431 National center
Reston, Virginia 2 2 0 9 2

ABSTRACT cal processes in landform evolution by

. investigating the groundwater hydrology
The northern part of the Yucatan Peninsula is a relatively flat, low-lying a n d geoc hemistry and utilizing water
carbonate terrane with no geomorphic expressions of stream channels. It balance and chemical mass transfer
is estimated that mean annual recharge to the groundwater system is 150 calculations,
mm. For the 6 5 , 5 0 0 km 2 study area, mean annual discharge (equivalent
to recharge) is 9.8 x 10 9 m 3 , or 8.6 x 10 6 m 3 for each 1 km of the 1,100- HYDROGEOLOGIC SETTING
km-long coastline. In the interior of the peninsula, the recharging water
The northern part of the Yucatan
annually dissolves about 37.5 t (metric tons) of calcite per 1 k m 2 . When the Peninsula is characterized by a low-lying,
groundwater has become saturated with calcite, little additional water- nearly featureless microkarstic plain. The
rock interaction occurs until the active mixing (dispersion) zone is reached southwestern part of this plain is bounded
near the coastline. by the Sierrita de Ticul, which extends
from Polyuc to Maxcanu (Fig. 1) and
Theoretical calculations and laboratory experiments have shown that
Functions as a groundwater divide that
when two waters, each calcite saturated and with different salinities, are forms part of the southern hydrologic
mixed, the resulting solution generally becomes undersaturated with cal- boundary. An arcuate trend of low-lying
cite and, therefore, is capable of dissolving additional calcite. On the basis hills between Maxcanu and Campeche is
of our study of the Xel Ha lagoon on the east coast of Yucatan, we calcu- also a groundwater divide, which separates
late that as much as 1.2 m m o l / L additional calcite can be dissolved in the the swampy coastal area from the higher
interior southeast of the hills. Faulting
brackish groundwater zone of dispersion. This indicates that if the total
between Polyuc and the eastern coast also
solution potential of the amount of water discharging at Xel Ha has represents a hydrologic boundary between
focused within the lagoon area, the lagoon could be chemically incised in the low-lying coastal area and the interior
less than 3 , 0 0 0 yr. We postulate that chemical mass wasting by dissolution of the peninsula. The thin soil cover over
in the zone of groundwater mixing is an important geomorphic process in the limestone, coupled with the extremely
high permeability of the rock and the
coastal areas of limestone terranes.
relatively featureless morphology of the
area, permit unrestricted infiltration
during and after rainfall. The extremely
Tertiary carbonate rocks, predominantly high transmissivity of the limestone allows
INTRODUCTION
limestone. Elevations are 30 m or less rapid lateral groundwater movement,
above mean sea level, except for a range which results in a thin lens of fresh water
In the sculpturing of most terrestrial
of low hills, the Sierrita de Ticul, that are (less than 70 m thick) floating on a re-
landforms, the most prominent geomor-
generally 100 m or less in elevation. The gional body of saline water of nearly
phic processes involve the physical actions
limestone is sparsely covered by a thin oceanic composition (Back and Hanshaw,
of water, ice, and wind. However, it is
terra rossa soil (generally 0 to 20 cm thick) 1970). The high transmissivity is demon-
well known that in carbonate terranes the
which supports a verdant but shallow- strated by (1) the lack of high head; for
dissolution of carbonate minerals plays an
rooted vegetation. Rainfall averages example, at Chichen Itza, although the
important role in the process of landscape
slightly more than 1,000 mm yr"1, yet no land surface is about 30 m above mean
formation. In most environments it is
surface runoff nor any geomorphic expres- sea level, the water table is only 1.5 m
difficult to evaluate the relative signifi-
sions of river or stream channels exists. above mean sea level at a distance of
cance of the physical and chemical proc-
Most of the rainfall is returned rapidly to about 80 km from the seacoast; (2) the
esses and usually even more difficult to
the atmosphere by evapotranspirative lack of significant drawdown observed in
determine their relative rates.
processes, and the rest percolates down to high-production wells (Lesser, 1965);
The northern part of the Yucatan Pen-
the groundwater table. Because there is (3) the ubiquitous measurable tritium and
insula provides an ideal environment in
essentially no discharge of sediment or the generally modern to greater than
which to study the process and rate of
dissolved constituents by fluvial transport, modern ages of groundwater as deter-
chemical erosion, especially in the zone of
the hydrogeologic conditions provide an mined by 14C in all samples analyzed
dispersion near the coastline. The northern
opportunity to study the role of geochemi- (Back and Hanshaw, 1974).
part of the peninsula consists of flat -lying

222 GEOLOGY, v. 8, p. 222-224, M A Y 1980


Figure 1. Location of study area and average amounts
of precipitation, real évapotranspiration, and groundwater
discharge, northern Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.
WATER BUDGET
The study area (Fig. 1) çovers about
65,500 km 2 , with a coastline of approxi-
mately 1,100 km. The various long spits
are ignored because most groundwater is
discharged at or very close to the shore-
line; thus, the spits generally do not con-
tain appreciable fresh groundwater. The
mean annual precipitation in the northern
Yucatan Peninsula ranges f r o m a low of
about 500 mm, near the coast north of
Merida, to more than 1,500 mm, in the
eastern part of the study area (Back and
Hanshaw, 1974). The average annual pre-
cipitation of the entire area was calculated
to be 1,050 mm (Lesser, 1976). Using a
mean annual temperature of 26 °C, Lesser
(1976) determined annual évapotranspira-
tion to be about 900 m m . Therefore,
because surface drainage does not occur
within the study area, the difference
between precipitation and évapotranspira-
tion, 150 mm, is the mean annual recharge
to the limestone aquifer system. Multiply-
ing this figure by the area of the study re-
gion gives a figure for the total recharge to
the system of about 9,800 x 106 m 3 yr" 1 .
According to Lesser (1976), the ground-
water consumption by the population
is about 350 x 106 m 3 yr" 1 , leaving
GEOLOGY
Average Ground-Water Discharge ::
8 . 6 x 1 0 6 m 3 y f 1 km"1 coast W *
9,450 x 106 m 3 yr" 1 as the total discharge
along the coastline for the aquifer system.
Dividing this by the approximate length
of coastline, 1,100 km, gives an average
discharge of about 8.6 x 106 m 3 yr" 1 for
each 1 km of coastline. Of course, these
calculations assume steady-state condi-
tions—a reasonable, long-term assumption.
On many sandy beaches along the coast,
tiny sand boils indicate groundwater dis-
charge at sea level. Typically, these dis-
charge points are too small to permit
measurement of discharge. However, in
some places, particularly along the east
coast, discharge rates can be measured,
especially in areas such as at Xel Ha, a
picturesque lagoon or caleta (Back and
others, 1976). Here the groundwater dis-
charge is concentrated locally and is ex-
pressed by a layer of brackish water over-
lying marine bottom waters in the lagoon;
the estimated potable groundwater dis-
charge at Xel H a is about 76.7 x 106 m 3
yr" 1 for a coastal length of 1 km (Back and
others, 1979). Because Xel H a is believed
to be an area of much higher than average
discharge (Back and others, 1979), this
estimate is in reasonable agreement with
the average discharge of 8.6 x 106 m 3 yr" 1
(calculated above).
By way of comparison, the P o t o m a c
River Basin in the eastern United States
drains an area about half the size of our
Yucatan study area; the mean annual
discharge of the P o t o m a c at Chain Bridge
above Washington, D . C . , is about 9,800
x 106 m 3 yr" 1 (Ward Hickman, 1979, oral
commun.). Rainfall is nearly equal for
both areas, but évapotranspiration may be
significantly higher in the Yucatan Penin-
sula than on the east coast of the United
States. It is not surprising, therefore, that
the two discharges are about equal even
though the areas differ by a factor of two.
C H E M I C A L MASS W A S T I N G
From our previous work (Back and
Hanshaw, 1970, 1974), we know that the
hydrogeochemistry of the northern Yuca-
tan Peninsula is relatively simple. As rain-
water infiltrates the vadose zone, lime-
stone dissolves until the groundwater
becomes saturated with calcite. Virtually
all samples of water f r o m the northern
Yucatan Peninsula are in equilibrium with
calcite. The other m a j o r control on the
chemistry of groundwater is mixing (essen-
tially hydrodynamic dispersion) of the
overlying lens of fresh groundwater with
the underlying regional body of water of
nearly oceanic composition. In the fol-
lowing calculations on the chemistry of
the potable groundwater, we removed an
amount of calcium equivalent to the con-
centration of sulfate; this accounts for
solution of gypsum as the source of all
sulfate and some calcium ions in the
potable groundwater. The remaining
average calcium content in the fresh
groundwater is about 2.5 m m o l / L , which
is equivalent to the amount of calcite
dissolved. In other words, each litre of
water moving through the subsurface of
the Yucatan Peninsula has dissolved about
2.5 mmol of calcite. Multiplying this by
recharge to the study area gives 24,500
x 106 mol of calcite dissolved per year,
or about 37.5 metric tons of calcite
removed by solution for each square
kilometre per year.
The preceding calculations are for the
interior part of the study area; at the
coastline another process removes signifi-
cant amounts of additional calcite. A field
example (Back and others, 1979) of theo-
retical calculations and laboratory experi-
ments (Runnells, 1969; Plummer, 1975)
indicates that when two waters, both
saturated with calcite and having different
salinities, are mixed, the resulting solution
is generally undersaturated with calcite;
that is, the resulting solution of interme-
223
diate salinity has the capability of dis-
solving additional limestone. Thus, in the
zone of dispersion, which averages about
3 m thick and extends inland approxi-
mately 1 km (Fig. 2), as much as 1.2
m m o l / L additional calcite can be dissolved
(Back and others, 1979). Therefore, using
the calculated average discharge of 3.6
x 109 L yr - 1 km" 1 of coastline and
assuming that 1 m m o l / L of additional
calcite is dissolved in the zone of disper-
sion, 8.6 x 106 mol is dissolved annually
per 1 km of coastline.
The zone of dispersion in a coastal
block of limestone 1 km 2 and 3 m thick
contains 7.5 x 109 kg of calcite. There-
fore, if 8.6 x 106 mol of calcite (8.6
x 10 5 kg) are dissolved f r o m this block
annually, then the block would dissolve
completely in about 8,700 yr. Obviously,
we can m a k e several assumptions regard-
ing the amount of calcite dissolved per
litre of discharge, and likewise the number
of litres of discharge, f r o m one stretch of
coast to another, but even allowing for
reasonable errors and variations, these
calculations demonstrate that the chemical
processes are geomorphically significant.
As mentioned previously, discharge in
the Xel H a area is about nine times greater
than the calculated average of the entire
1,100 km of coastline, primarily due to the
presence of a well-defined upper Pleisto-
cene carbonate sand spit located imme-
Figure 2. Block diagram of Xel Ha lagoon, east coast of Yucatan Peninsula, showing zone of
dispersion and brackish water discharge. Average flux of calcite (0CC) from peninsular interior is
about 2.5 mmol/L. In brackish zone of dispersion, mixing and associated decrease in calcite satura-
tion may lead to as much as 1 mmol/L additional calcite dissolution (A0CC). S.L. = sea level.
224
diately west of Xel H a (Back and others,
1979, Fig. 2). The highly permeable spit
serves as a local focus for groundwater
flow and accounts for the higher than
average discharge. The calculations indi-
cate that if the total solution potential of
the amount of water discharging at Xel
H a was focused within the lagoon area, it
could be chemically incised in 3,000 yr or
less. According to Brady (1978), marshes
and swamps lying landward of coastal
lagoons located north of Xel H a are less
than 5,000 yr old, at which time sea level
was 3 to 5 m lower than the present level.
Therefore, the active zone of dispersion
would have been several kilometres sea-
ward of its present location at Xel H a at
that time; on the basis of this physical
evidence, the development of Xel H a must
have occurred in less than 5,000 yr.
Along the entire eastern coast of the
Yucatan Peninsula are many semicircular
bays that extend about 1 km back f r o m
the coastline. We conclude that although
this coastal indentation and the distribu-
tion of these bays are partly controlled by
the fracture pattern and wave action, these
geomorphic features are also controlled by
solution processes in the geochemically
active zone of dispersion. The rates of
chemical denudation calculated for the
northern Yucatan Peninsula indicate that
chemical mass wasting in the zone of dis-
persion is an important and perhaps domi-
' R I N T E D IN U.S.A.
nant geomorphic process in that area; we
believe that it may also be significant in
other limestone areas with similar geo-
chemical and hydrologic regimes.
REFERENCES CITED
Back, William, and H a n s h a w , B. B., 1 9 7 0 , C o m -
parison o f c h e m i c a l h y d r o g e o l o g y o f the
c a r b o n a t e peninsulas o f Florida and
Y u c a t a n : Journal of H y d r o l o g y , v. 1 0 ,
p. 3 3 0 - 3 6 8 .
— 1974, Hydrogeochemistry of the northern
Y u c a t a n Peninsula, M e x i c o , in Weidie, A. E.,
e d . , Field seminar o n w a t e r and c a r b o n a t e
r o c k s o f the Y u c a t a n Peninsula, M e x i c o :
N e w Orleans G e o l o g i c a l S o c i e t y G u i d e b o o k ,
Field Trip 2 , G e o l o g i c a l S o c i e t y o f A m e r i c a
A n n u a l Meeting, p. 4 5 - 7 7 .
Back, William, H a n s h a w , B. B., and Pyle, T. E.,
1 9 7 6 , Preliminary results o f a g e o c h e m i c a l
and h y d r o l o g i c s t u d y o f Caleta Xel Ha,
Quintana Roo, Mexico, with a note on the
g e o l o g y o f Xel Ha, in Weidie, A. E., and
Ward, W. C., e d s . , C a r b o n a t e r o c k s and
h y d r o g e o l o g y o f the Y u c a t a n Peninsula,
M e x i c o : N e w Orleans G e o l o g i c a l S o c i e t y ,
G u i d e b o o k , A m e r i c a n A s s o c i a t i o n o f Petro-
l e u m G e o l o g i s t s and S o c i e t y o f E c o n o m i c
P a l e o n t o l o g i s t s and Mineralogists Field Trip,
1 9 7 6 A n n u a l C o n v e n t i o n , p. 2 4 4 - 2 5 8 .
Back, William, and o t h e r s , 1 9 7 9 , G e o c h e m i c a l
significance o f g r o u n d - w a t e r discharge and
carbonate solution to the formation of
Caleta Xel Ha, Quintana R o o , M e x i c o :
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p. 1 5 2 1 - 1 5 3 5 .
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tional history o f coastal lagoons, northeast-
ern Q u i n t a n a R o o , M e x i c o , in Ward, W. C.,
and Weidie, A . E., eds., G e o l o g y and h y d r o -
g e o l o g y o f northeastern Y u c a t a n : N e w
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p. 8 5 - 1 1 2 .
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of t h e Y u c a t a n Peninsula, M e x i c o , in Pro-
c e e d i n g s , S y m p o s i u m o n H y d r o l o g y o f Frac-
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N o . 10, 11 p.
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w i t h c a l c i u m c a r b o n a t e ground w a t e r , in
W h i t t e n , E . H . T . , e d . , Quantitative s t u d i e s in
t h e geological s c i e n c e s : G e o l o g i c a l S o c i e t y
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Runnels, D. D., 1 9 6 9 , Diagenesis, c h e m i c a l sedi-
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Reviewed by Bernard Hallet and J. S. Hanor.
We thank J. T. Hack, W. C. Ward, and A. E.
Weidie for comments on the manuscript. We are
grateful to A. E. Weidie for introducing us to
the Yucatan Peninsula. Tyler Coplen, Juan
Lesser, Niel Plummer, T. E. Pyle, W. C. Ward,
and A. E. Weidie helped with parts of the field
and laboratory work and provided much stimu-
lating discussion. This work was made possible
by a cooperative agreement administered by the
National Science Foundation and Consejo
Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia.
MANUSCRIPT RECEIVED DEC. 31, 1979
MANUSCRIPT ACCEPTED FEB. 25, 1980
MAY 1980