The water well industry has not adopted a universal classification system for the logging of water well boreholes. This has resulted in inconsistent and incomplete records that are not correlative or, in many cases, unusable to identify aquifers, formations, confining layers, or significant water-production zones. A standard classification system is needed to provide structure and uniformity for the logging of these water well boreholes. The actions of drilling have a significant effect on the quality of the samples that are collected and described. Each drilling method has a different level of disturbance to the samples whose description must reflect, as much as possible, the undisturbed nature of the materials. Water well boreholes can be drilled for production or hydro-geologic investigations. Contractors, hydrogeologists, and engineers-all who have varying backgrounds and training in describing hydrogeologic systems-are tasked with producing borehole logs that are incorporated into the permanent hydro-geologic record. The result, though, is on occasion borehole logs that are not of value when important hydrogeologic data could have been collected.
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