Sedimentary basins of the United States Midcontinent contain significant petroleum reservoirs and ore deposits of lead, zinc, barite, and fluorite which appear to have origins related to the migration of deep groundwater and hydrocarbons over 100's of kilometers. Geological and geochemical data are abundant for these sedimentary basins and so they are nearly perfect candidates for constraining theoretical models for deep groundwater flow and petroleum migration over geological time and distances. A new three-dimensional finite-element model will be constructed to quantify coupled deep groundwater flow and heat transport as a function of time. This model will then be applied to studies of two specific regional problems: (1) Ore formation on the Ozark Dome of southeast Missouri and (2) Oil migration in the Anadarko Basin of Oklahoma and Kansas. The effects of three-dimensional flow and transport on ore formation a t the district-scale will also be investigated with detailed models of the Viburnum Trend and Old Lead Belt in southeast Missouri. Geochemical theories for ore- solution transport and deposition will be tested with reaction-path calculations which are coupled to the groundwater flow system. The work represents the first effort in characterizing true three- dimensional effects of groundwater plaeoflow at the basin scale and as such it ought to pioneer a new generation of ideas and applications in studies of the role of groundwater in geologic processes.
