{"id":1181,"date":"2019-07-03T08:30:34","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T08:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/?p=1181"},"modified":"2026-05-03T20:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T03:22:10","slug":"large-freshwater-aquifer-found-in-the-atlantic-ampac-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/large-freshwater-aquifer-found-in-the-atlantic-ampac-usa\/","title":{"rendered":"Large Freshwater Aquifer Found In The Atlantic &#8211; AMPAC USA"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"answer-box\" style=\"background:#f0f7ff;border-left:4px solid #0066cc;padding:16px 20px;margin:0 0 24px;border-radius:4px\">\n<p><strong>Freshwater Aquifer Atlantic Ocean<\/strong> is a big deal in today&#8217;s water <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/why-is-large-scale-seawater-treatment-still-unconventional\/\">treatment<\/a> world. At AMPAC USA, we build top-notch systems that give you safe, clean water for your home, business, or industry. Our systems are made to pull out the most contaminants and keep working reliably for years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: Just last month, on June 18th, something big caught everyone's eye in the US. Researchers at Columbia University made a new discovery. Their findings, first published in <\/span><<span style=\"font-weight: Scientific Reports<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, pointed to a massive freshwater aquifer right off the US Atlantic coast. Chloe Gustafson led the team that found this hidden aquifer. It holds enough fresh water to fill 1.1 billion Olympic swimming pools.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: This undersea aquifer stretches along the coast from New Jersey to Massachusetts, and it probably reaches Rhode Island and New York too. It could contain 2,800 cubic kilometers, or 739 trillion gallons, of liquid.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Discovery<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: Since the 1970s, oil drilling companies occasionally hit small pockets of freshwater under the seabed. This made people wonder if a much larger freshwater reservoir was hiding down there.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8220;<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: We knew there was fresh water down there in isolated places, but we did not know the extent or geometry,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8221; said Chloe Gustafson, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: In 2015, the team used a special technology, similar to what oil companies use to find oil pockets. They placed receivers to measure electromagnetic waves under the seabed. Saltwater conducts these waves more easily, so a band with lower conductance showed them where the reservoir was. The recent findings prove these pockets are continuous. They start at the shore, extend 75 miles out, and sit between 600 and 1200 feet deep under the sea.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>How Did It Get There?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: Scientists have two theories. One is that it's a huge chunk of ice from the last Ice Age that got trapped in sediment rocks and then melted. The other, more likely idea, is that it's fed by underground runoff from the mainland. This theory gains strength because salinity measurements show the water gets saltier the farther it is from the shore.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Scope<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: A discovery like this can really help the scientific community. It can improve our understanding of continental shelves and how their cycles work. But most importantly, it offers hope. It suggests there might be many more undersea freshwater aquifers out there, which could supply water to cities facing shortages.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: Since the water is a bit salty, it'll need a <<span style=\"font-weight: desalination process<\/span>. But it could still provide water for millions of people. Just a few more aquifers like this could potentially help end the global water crisis. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8220;<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: It could turn out to be an important resource in other parts of the world,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8221; Gustafson mentioned.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>About The Author:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: AMPAC USA builds water treatment systems, a field we've been working in for 30 years. We're a leading manufacturer of <\/span><\/i><<i><span style=\"font-weight: desalination watermakers<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: that turn seawater into fresh water.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last month on 18 June, a new discovery made by researchers at Columbia University caught the attention of everyone. Promising lead of a large freshwater aquifer, northeast, U.S, Atlantic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2341,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,29],"tags":[203,204,205],"class_list":["post-1181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seawater-desalination","category-water-treatment","tag-gustafson","tag-just-northeast-of-the-u-s-in-atlantic-led-by-chloe","tag-large-freshwater-aquifer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1181"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88250,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181\/revisions\/88250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}