A

anomalies    Unusually high or low values or patterns.

aquifer (surficial and confined)    A permeable water-bearing layer of sediment or rock; a confined aquifer is isolated from the ground surface by one or more low-permeability layers of sediment or rock, while a surficial or unconfined aquifer is not.

B

barrier island    a long, narrow island that usually comprises sand and gravel and is generally parallel to the shore of a larger land mass and separated from it by shallow open water and wetlands.

C

conductivity    The ability of a material or mixture to carry an electrical current.

D

dipole    A pair of positive and negative charges separated by a small distance.

E

estuary    A body of water typically found where a river meets the ocean.

eutrophication    An increase in the concentration of dissolved nutrients in a water body that increases growth or algae, often to a harmful degree and often caused by human influences.

G

groundwater    Water located beneath the ground surface or sediment surface in pore spaces and fractures.

H

hydrostratigraphy    Structure of subsurface porous materials in reference to the flow of groundwater, often relating to stratigraphy.

I

interpolated    Interpreted conditions between locations of measured data.

inversion    The process of working backwards from measured properties, such as electrical resistivity, to reconstruct the actual conditions that yielded the measurements.

J

Julian day    Day of the year measured from January 1, without regard to months.

L

linearized    Converted from an irregular or curved path into a straight line to simplify computations.

N

nutrients    Chemicals that organisms needs to live and grow, especially dissolved forms of nitrogen in the case of estuaries.

P

peat    Organic-rich sediment deposited beneath wetlands.

porewater    The water occupying the spaces between sediment particles.

potential    The property of electrical potential energy divided by electrical charge, usually measured in volts.

profile    A cross-section produced from geophysical data.

pseudosection     An image plotting apparent electrical resistivity data against position along a traverse line; this image is produced as an intermediate step to reconstructing the true electrical properties and geometry of a measured transect.

R

resistivity    A measure of how strongly a material or mixture opposes the flow of electric current through it.

S

saline    At or near the saltiness of seawater.

shapefile    A data format commonly used for geographic information systems files.

streamer    A cable towed behind a ship that contains electrodes or acoustic sensors.

surface water    Water occurring in the form of a stream, river, lake, estuary, or ocean.

T

trackline    An individual segment of a larger marine geophysical survey, often assigned a sequential number that corresponds to the order in which that interval of data was collected.

V