I May Have Found Underground Water In The High Desert

What's growing on everyone? I'm Brandon, and this is the Greening the Desert Project. Today we're taking a deep dive, literally and figuratively. But we're also taking a look at a very unusual pattern on our landscape that actually might signify that we have more water than we actually think here. Most people understand that when we have trees, that almost automatically signifies that we've got water. And although the native species of trees that we do have on our landscape, which include juniper trees and also pinyon pines, these trees are actually significant in our search for water on our landscape. And so it's with the trees that I'm finding this straight line pattern with a mixture of junipers and pinyon pines. So this is a really interesting pattern that I've discovered on our landscape, but we actually need to understand a little bit about the geology or what's underneath where these trees are growing to get a better idea of how the water is interacting with our landscape. Alright, so before we even get into the tree aspect, we want to get into something that most people don't even think is related to rainwater harvesting or water in general, which are rocks. So the geology of our landscape. Now I've touched on this briefly in previous episodes a little bit about the geology, the different rocks that we have on our property, and more so describing just the trouble that we have with these rocks in digging down and some of the other projects we're trying to do around here. But understanding the geology in our landscape is really important, and honestly from my standpoint, it's really exciting even, because this just gives a whole lot of insight into how our water is actually percolating into the soil further down, and actually this is one of the key signs, and maybe more so something just to dial in, is the geology. But this is going to give us a way better understanding of what's below the surface and potentially where extra water might be stored, or the potential of knowing where we have underground water streams in our landscape. Understanding what kind of rocks we do have gives us way better insight into the fracturing and how the water does sink down, and that's where on a little bit of my off time actually, I have been doing some studying and just learning more about the geology of our landscape. But more specifically I've been learning about just how fracturing and just how water is reacting underground, and how all of these fractures and the different types of rock that we have that create different fracturing and different sediment deposits, sand deposits, and so on, how all of these actually coincide with understanding the water usage of our landscape naturally. And I think it's just that much more exciting too, because this is just a whole other field of study, which just ups our knowledge base in understanding a lot more of our natural world and our natural landscape. So our landscape actually consists of old volcanic activity a long, long time ago. So we're in an area that has a few different types of rock, and the rock that I'm sitting on actually here is a type of shale rock. So I'm looking at the shale rock, that's where I'm studying about all the different porosity, how water works underground. This is where we're going to find how shale is and its porosity, and it's actually pretty far down on the list of porous material, you could say. And that's because of its fracturing. And so we can get really good insight into seeing that this kind of rock is going to create a less permeable space for water to seep through, unless the fractures are big enough. But we can know that because we have this in our area, that's where we can have a little bit of insight that we could find it in some of these areas on our landscape that are holding more water, and possibly assume that there might be a layer of shale that's restricting water from penetrating farther down. All right, so I'm going to walk down the rocks here, and we're going to go to our next little pocket. That's kind of the nice thing about our landscape, is that we can go to these sections that we have, that one section you can see we have all the shale, and now this next section we're going to go to, which is a lot of what's called quartzite. So we have a lot of quartzite on our property. And to define this a little bit more, this is a red or pink quartzite that we have. So just with its red or the pink color that it has, this actually just means that we have a lot of iron content as well as magnesium content in this stone, and possibly in our surrounding soil as well. So that's a big plus for plant growth. So we're kind of doing things in mismatched order here, but when it comes to the quartzite, that's where when we're looking at the porosity compared to the shale that we were just at, this actually has a whole lot less porosity, and it more so comes down to the fracturing in both the shale but also the quartzite, because the quartzite really has no pores, no nothing at all for the water to seep or penetrate through. So when we're looking at this type of rock, this actually is a really good sign too, because this is the least permeable out of all the stone that we have. We still have some other stone to look at too. So it's a really good sign with this quartzite, because that means just the different layers of stone and rock that we have on our landscape, this actually could be a layer that is farther down, just because we're farther down on the hillside, and with years, centuries of erosion and the monsoons that come, the hillside that we do have, this actually could have an underlayering of this quartzite stone that isn't allowing water to penetrate farther down, at least where there isn't any fracturing. So this is the rock that we have in abundance on our landscape, and this is basalt. So the basalt layer of rock that we have, this is something that had rapidly cooled when the magma first was kind of pooling around in our area, but this is a rock layer that is prevalent all around, and we actually can find a lot of fracturing that goes on with this kind of rock, but we can also kind of see in our whole landscape just how easy this rock fractures and breaks apart and just crumbles down the hill here. But knowing what this kind of rock is is super important, just to know the porosity of it, and knowing that this is kind of on the top of the chain here as the most porous stone that we have compared to the quartzite, which is our least porous, and then the shale, which is the second least porous. So knowing about all the different kinds of rock that we have on our landscape is really important for most people's landscape, especially if you're trying to understand how the water is penetrating into your landscape, what it's doing, how it's contributing, and so on. But this is all easily obtainable knowledge that we can at least find out for ourselves through observation, but also through a little bit of homework and research, we can understand at least some of the basics, maybe not to the expertise level as someone with a degree in geology and such, but we can still get a pretty good gauge about the geology and how that's interacting with our landscape, but then also how that's interacting with the water that does land on our property. Alright, as I walk up the hill here and watching my step, because look what I'm climbing on. Climbing on lots of rocks up this hill. But now that we have a little bit of a basic understanding about the geology on our landscape, having that understanding, now we can actually take a look at this pattern that I've recently discovered, and if you're actually a Green Guardians member, you actually got the inside scoop into my observation. And just remember, you can support the channel by joining our Green Guardians on YouTube or the Patreon membership. Looking up here, so this is the line. So we've got trees, do-do-do-do-do-do-do, all down here, down this way. And so it's super exciting because that is the meaning of potential water. Extra water is what we're looking at. Extra water. For these trees to be this sizable, it's hard without me walking into the scene to show the comparison, but this is a really tall pine tree, so this is of major significance. Especially this one back here, that's a sizable tree. That's super tall, and going up the hill. So what we can conclude, almost a little bit, is that we have either a fracturing or a fault that the water is following underground, either shallower, maybe deeper. Definitely the trees are bringing their taproot pretty far down, but at the same time, because for how tall they are and just very healthy looking, all the needles, everything, and just the size, like I said, it's a very big indicator that they're tapping into further water. It's not a fertility thing as much as it is extra water that they're getting down this line. And it goes with the junipers. The junipers are obviously getting water, but they're also not as sizable. But that's the cool thing. These two, this is a pine tree, and then right next to it, this is a juniper. So they were growing together, but you can see they're both almost equal size. So it's really cool. The potential, I've done some water dousing in these areas, and these are spots that I've hit. So you can kind of see back here, there's this big gap, and it's this big open space, and then that actually goes, there's that other kind of vein of trees that I'm talking about. Same with this here. I'll walk over a little bit. So that's where we're definitely looking at the potential of either water being stored underground or being slowed by a whole lot. Otherwise, it's like this is a whole pocket where water is sitting and being stashed for these trees to get more. Otherwise, it can be the possibility that there's just more water being funneled into these spots, into kind of these veins or crevices or fractures, and this is the path where the water's going so the trees are naturally growing towards it. So because nature is a little more chaotic, it's random. It just puts things everywhere. It's not random when we really get down to the science of things, but when just observing, it's kind of random in that sense. And it's like these trees just grow all the way down this way. So that's where we really get a good insight of what's going on water-wise in these areas, especially how sizable these trees are. Because look at my hand compared to the tree itself. So we've got a very sizable tree, especially with the pine tree. And then we've got this little pocket here. So this is really, really cool because these are spots that, in between the trees, I could actually probably try to dig as far as I could. And these are potential spots to look out for when it rains or throughout the winter and going into spring. And it's just important to note, in doing these test pits, that's where we're going to get the insight to see if there is shallow water that develops or pools in these test pits or if you have to dig farther down and there's kind of just a more slowed-down, consistent stream of water that flows underground, basically. So this is something really important because this took two years to be able to observe this pattern. So that's where just the concepts of permaculture, we're really looking at observation in the long term because we're only going to find out more about our land. We're going to understand more about the patterns that are on the land itself. And that's the thing. It took two years to understand this pattern. And I'm sure there's plenty more to understand, especially because we're trying to observe how we can stash and harvest more water on the landscape, not only for soaking in the ground, but also for irrigating all of the trees and the nursery that we're trying to start here. So that's kind of, like I said in the last previous video, was about sacrificing a lot of the landscape or a decent portion of the landscape for strictly roof space and water catchment and storage, basically. So that's what we're going to be looking at on this lower portion. But it's also just exciting to see that potential that, you know, there might be that seasonal spring that we can tap into and be able to funnel that water kind of back up the hill and recharge or kind of complete the circuit, the water cycle circuit here, but just continuing that cycle so then there's always water being cycled up and down the hill, basically. And that can be done because if we plant more up top and create better soil and conditions to grow better vegetation, then the water that we gather down here, even if it's just from the rain catchment, then we're completing the cycle and getting more water soaked so that it does have more potential to raise the water table up top because of the water or the rock fracturing and stuff that's preventing it and slowing it. But then we'll also get better stream flow on these underground places where these are kind of prime spots where we can consider planting stuff, even trees that do require more water. So this is good insight for planting-wise. If we wanted to just straight plant, try and tap that water source, I guess, essentially. So there's kind of a few options, but it's really just exciting just because of where we are in the high mountain deserts of northern Arizona, this hot and dry, arid landscape. So seeing this growth gives a whole lot of optimism that there could be a lot of water stashed in these veins of trees, basically. So really exciting. Maybe I'll just upload this and see what people think. Otherwise, it's something I wanted to really show people and show you guys and just give that insight because of just my own excitement, but also that potential that we'll be able to do test pits. And that's where the video might come in, just showing how we're going to do these test pits, what we're going to be looking for, and just the overall goal of these areas or these veins of trees. Just a nice rain cloud for us. We just had that nice little burst of rain. And now I'm walking down to our wash and we got some flow going. A story of strength, more precious than gold. We're digging in deep where the water flows free. Building a future for you and for me.