Talk:Cenote

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Are the units "meters per year" really the right ones? I have a hard time picturing what this means. This article cites no sources. krc 19:26, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for adding a citation. I don't have the reference material at hand, so still I ask: are these the correct units? Something like "cubic meters per year" would make more sense to me. krc 04:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rumpuscat (talkcontribs)

Hi - Yes, flow rates are in units of length per unit time. If the units were volume per time (ie cubic m per second, which is a discharge) then you would take the velocity and multiply by the cross sectional area. Since the vertical cross section of each cenote or cave is different, this is not a good way to provide a typical benchmark value for all cenotes. In contrast, the water flow rate is generally independent of how big the cenote since it is the regional pressure field driving the flow (ie water velocity in a big cave/cenote is not necessarily higher than velocity in a small cave/cenote). As for the numbers cited, they are of the correct order of magnitude, but that is all that was attempted to provide. Groundwater flow rates are generally only quoted to order of magnitude ranges (ie 10, 100, 1000, 10 000 m /day or /year depending on the system). Cheers. Ggpab (talk) 02:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation and improvements to the article. krc Rumpuscat (talk) 04:55, 19 December 2007 (UTC)