Hunt Randall J, Borchardt Mark A, Bradbury Kenneth R
USDA-Agricultural Research Service, Environmentally Integrated Dairy Management Research Unit, Marshfield, WI 54449;
Ground Water. 2014 Mar-Apr;52(2):187-93. doi: 10.1111/gwat.12158. Epub 2014 Jan 16.
Viruses are attractive tracers of short (<3 year) travel times in aquifers because they have unique genetic signatures, are detectable in trace quantities, and are mobile in groundwater. Virus "snaphots" result from infection and disappearance in a population over time; therefore, the virus snapshot shed in the fecal wastes of an infected population at a specific point in time can serve as a marker for tracking virus and groundwater movement. The virus tracing approach and an example application are described to illustrate their ability to characterize travel times in high-groundwater velocity settings, and provide insight unavailable from standard hydrogeologic approaches. Although characterization of preferential flowpaths does not usually characterize the majority of other travel times occurring in the groundwater system (e.g., center of plume mass; tail of the breakthrough curve), virus approaches can trace very short times of transport, and thus can fill an important gap in our current hydrogeology toolbox.
病毒是含水层中短（<3年）运移时间的理想示踪剂，因为它们具有独特的基因特征，可在痕量水平检测到，并且在地下水中具有流动性。病毒“快照”是随着时间推移种群中感染和消失的结果；因此，在特定时间点受感染人群粪便废物中排出的病毒快照可作为追踪病毒和地下水流动的标志物。本文描述了病毒示踪方法及一个示例应用，以说明它们在高地下水流速环境中表征运移时间的能力，并提供标准水文地质方法无法获得的见解。尽管优先流路径的表征通常不能表征地下水系统中发生的大多数其他运移时间（例如，羽状体质量中心；突破曲线尾部），但病毒方法可以追踪非常短的运移时间，从而可以填补我们当前水文地质工具箱中的一个重要空白。
