An interview with C.V. Theis John D. Bredehoeft Keywords Profiles . History of hydrogeology

Introduction Every serious hydrogeologist is aware of the Theis Equation. I was fortunate enough to have known C.V. Theis—“C.V.” to his friends (Fig. 1). I interviewed him in December 1985 for the video that is being included on the International Association of Hydrogeologists’ (IAH) Time Capsule website (IAH 2007). It is my intent, in this article, to provide background comments for the website interview. For those interested, White and Clebsch (1994) provide a biography of Theis. I was first aware of Theis as an individual when my PhD advisor, Burke Maxey, was appointed to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Containment Panel in the early 1960s. The US was testing nuclear devices underground at the Nevada Test Site. Several of the early underground blasts were not contained in the subsurface; the shots vented to the atmosphere, releasing radioactive clouds. One of these had disastrous consequences. The AEC determined that this should not continue to happen. They created the Containment Panel, a panel of experts, to advise them on subsurface conditions at the Nevada Test Site; many of the experts were geologists and hydrogeologists. Among the panel members were Theis, M. King Hubbert, and Harold A. Thomas (Head of the Water Program at Harvard University, Massachusetts). Maxey got to know Theis through this work. Maxey had a colleague at the Illinois State Geological Survey, Al Bell, who was head of the Oil and Gas Section. Al’s wife Dorothy had been a graduate student colleague of Theis, and a close friend, at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio. Dorothy liked a good party as did Maxey and Theis. On occasion Theis would visit the Bells in Champaign, Illinois—invariably a party would result. Maxey’s graduate students were like his extended family. All were included in whatever festivities, including the Bells, and on occasion Theis. Received: 26 September 2007 / Accepted: 11 November 2007 Published online: 18 January 2008 * Springer-Verlag 2007 J. D. Bredehoeft ()) HydroDynamics Group, Sausalito, CA 94965, USA e-mail: [email protected] Hydrogeology Journal (2008) 16: 5–9

In 1962, following my PhD studies, I went to work at the US Geological Survey (USGS) in the research program in groundwater in Washington, DC, where I apprenticed with Bob Bennett. Bob was the first director of the nationally funded groundwater research program at the USGS; he was widely respected by the groundwater community within the Survey. When prominent hydrogeologists visited the USGS Washington Office, as they inevitably did, they often came by to talk with Bob; I met these individuals, including C.V. Theis. Later I shared an office complex with Bob, Hilton Cooper, Stavros Papadopoulos, and George Pinder. Hilton was a good friend of Theis. They both did the math puzzles in Scientific American every month, and shared their results. On a number of occasions Theis visited our office; he was personable, with a good sense of humor, and an ego—but not an inflated sense of himself. One of my early assignments was to investigate the impact of the Good Friday Earthquake, Alaska (27 March 1964) on water wells in the lower 48 states (i.e. mainland states south of Alaska). Many wells responded to the earthquake, some very dramatically—one well in Florida fluctuated 10 m (30 ft). A number of the wells that responded to the earthquake also had good earth-tide signals. If we could understand the earth-tide response in the well, we might have a means to measure the volume strain of the rock. I wrote a manuscript on the earth-tide response in wells, which Hilton Cooper encouraged me to send to Theis for his review. Theis pointed out that I had not adequately accounted for the pressure change in the fluid as the rock was strained by the tidal potential. This incident impressed on me Theis’ great intuition on how groundwater behaved in rocks, even his understanding of rock mechanics.

Background Within the groundwater community at the USGS in the 1920s, it became apparent that groundwater systems were not incompressible. Meinzer (1928) wrote a paper expressing the view that the system must be compressible. Observations in wells in places like Atlantic City, New Jersey indicated that the fluctuations caused by ocean tide loading of aquifers decreased as one moved inland away from the beach. The big question of the early 1930s was—What was the form of the governing equation for groundwater flow in a DOI 10.1007/s10040-007-0248-z

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compressible medium? Without a governing flow equation, groundwater hydrology was stymied. Qualitative investigations were still possible, but there could not be meaningful quantitative analyses. This was certainly clear to Meinzer, as well as other members of the community. Theis was awarded a PhD Degree in Geology from the University of Cincinnati in 1929—the first doctorate in geology granted by the University of Cincinnati. He had earned a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Civil Engineering in 1922; he was elected to the prestigious Engineering Honor Society, Tau Beta Pi. Following his PhD, he took the USGS entrance examination and passed, but he had to wait a year before there was a job at the Survey. He worked initially for the US Corps of Engineers. In 1930, he joined the Division of Ground Water at the USGS. There is a famous composite photo of the USGS Ground Water Division in 1932; it contains all the members of the Division at that time. Oscar Meinzer was head of the Division; there were 30 scientists in the Division in 1932; Meinzer headed the Division from 1912 for 34 years until his retirement in 1946. 1932 was a twentieth year anniversary of the Division. In 1932, Theis was the most junior member of the group. There were other hydrogeologists at the USGS, outside the Ground Water Division; prominent among these was N.H. Darton. It is worth remembering that there were only 50 or so hydrogeologists in the western world in 1932—certainly less than 100 by any reasonable count. Until the mid 1930s, the USGS sent its scientists into the field during the summer; they returned to the main offices, in Washington DC, in the winter. The group was close; there were many parties around the holidays— everyone participated. Theis’ wife Gladys was a sculptress (Fig. 2); one winter she made masks of many of the USGS geologists, including one of N.H. Darton—as Theis commented, Darton lacked any sense of humor. Gladys was a sufficiently good artist to be listed in the first issue of Who’s Who in American Art (McGlauflin 1935). Starting in the mid 1930s, the water resources group at the USGS established full-time field offices in various states. In 1936, Theis was sent to New Mexico to establish a field office. Many of the early groundwater field offices were located within the geology department of a local university. Theis had his office in the Geology Department building at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque for many years. Theis’ early work was on the New Mexico part of the High Plains Aquifer; much of the work was near the town of Portales—near the Texas High Plains. In 1935, Theis published his famous paper in the Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of American Geophysical Union (AGU)—most hydrogeologists of the day were members of AGU. Theis (1935) suggested the analogy between heat flow and groundwater flow. This was the solution to the outstanding problem that confronted the group—Meinzer could not believe that Theis had solved the problem. Theis was the youngest member of his team, and a “geologist”; he was most skeptical. Meinzer, like many managers, had pigeonholes Hydrogeology Journal (2008) 16: 5–9

for his team members. He had geologists, engineers— some he looked upon as his theoreticians. Theis simply did not fit Meinzer’s mold for solving the theoretical problem of the day, and he let Theis know. In the interview, you can sense Theis’ efforts, and frustration in getting his transient idea accepted by the community. In the 1930s, the USGS conducted a series of elaborate pumping tests in Nebraska in the Platte Valley; the first two tests were near Grand Island in 1931. In 1933, two additional tests were conducted in Nebraska—one near Kearney, and a second near Gothenberg. In 1937, another test was conducted in the North Platte Valley near Scottsbluff. Theis remembered these tests as the first full-scale pumping tests in the United States. Meinzer had been communicating with Gunther Thiem in Germany; Thiem had run pumping tests in the Rhine Valley. The Rhine Valley tests inspired Meinzer to increase efforts in the Platte Valley. One of Meinzer’s first moves after Theis’ 1935 paper was to have Lee Wenzel, his theoretician, reinterpret the data from the Nebraska tests using Theis’ new theory. Theis also commented that Meinzer instructed Wenzel to analyze the Nebraska data to extract the storage coefficient—in this case specific yield (Wenzel 1942).

Jacob Wenzel became incurably ill in 1940, and retired. Meinzer brought C.E. Jacob to Washington to replace Wenzel. Jacob first joined the USGS while a graduate student at Columbia University, New York; he worked in the Long Island office under Max Leggette (later Leggette was one of the principals in the groundwater consulting firm Leggette, Brashears & Graham Inc). One of the early studies of the compressibility of aquifers, in which Jacob participated, involved running railroad locomotives near a Long Island observation well. Jacob (1940), starting from first principles, derived the groundwater flow equation, and showed that it was analogous to the heat flow equation—just as Theis suggested in 1935. Jacob’s derivation is one of the landmarks in groundwater theory. Jacob’s derivation vindicated Theis, even in Meinzer’s view. Once the groundwater community had a basic theoretical expression for groundwater flow; it opened the door to advances in theory that quickly followed in the 1940s, 1950s, and beyond. Jacob led in these advances until his untimely death in his late fifties.

Lubin Theis needed a solution for the point sink boundary-value problem for his 1935 paper. He turned to an old college friend from Cincinnati, Clarence Lubin—a mathematician. Lubin had been turned down for membership of Tau Beta Pi, the Engineering Honor Society, because he was Jewish. Theis was upset by this event; he is still upset as he relates Lubin’s Cincinnati story. DOI 10.1007/s10040-007-0248-z

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Fig. 1 A portrait of the older Theis (1900–1987). Reproduced from Clebsch (1994)

Lubin provided the solution that Theis needed. Theis offered him co-authorship of his paper which Lubin declined—the mathematical problem was not sufficiently challenging in Lubin’s mind. Theis also felt that the groundwater group at the USGS needed a full-fledged mathematician. He thought about Lubin for the position. This again raised the anti-Semitic issue. Meinzer commented that Grover, who was the Chief Hydrologist at the USGS in the mid 1930s, would never hire a Jew.

The Horton medal Once the Horton Medal was established by AGU in 1976 to honor work on hydrology, it seemed important to recognize the distinguished older hydrologists who were still living. Theis was one of that group. Theis has a fairly long bibliography but many of his publications are not in refereed journals. In fact, his number of journal articles is limited. I wrote the citation for Theis for the Horton Medal. It seemed to me that I had to address this issue head on and recognize that Theis’ papers, while limited in number, were nevertheless most significant—I said as much in the citation. My citation bothered Theis; he was sensitive about his publication record. You can see at one point that he confronted me about my remarks in the citation. Even so, we got him the Horton Medal in 1984. Many of the USGS scientists were exempt from the draft in World War II; they were considered too important to the war effort. Much of Theis’ work during the war years was involved in locating groundwater supplies for military bases in the arid west, especially Air Force Bases—the weather was good in the desert for flying almost year around. Theis spent the winter of 1943–1944 finding groundwater supplies along the Alaska Highway. These assignments resulted in numerous administrative reports, none of which were published in the open literature. The same is true of Theis’ later work for the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission). Some individuals have much more influence within the community than their publication record reflects—Theis is one of those people. He influenced the course of groundwater hydrology. Hydrogeology Journal (2008) 16: 5–9

Fig. 2 An image of C.V. and his wife, Gladys, on a field trip in Ouray, Colorado, USA, in 1940. Reproduced from Clebsch (1994)

Dispersion The members of the AEC Containment Panel became concerned with the transport of radioactive contaminants in groundwater. A friendly disagreement arose between Theis and Harold Thomas. Theis argued that the dispersion would be small, and Thomas argued it would be large. Field experiments were performed by Thomas and his students at Harvard University, and by Warren J. Kaufman, David K. Todd, M.N.E. Rifai, and their students at Berkeley University, California; the experiments found large values of dispersivity. Theis asked Kaufman if they had found what they expected—“Sure as hell didn’t” was the response. They found much larger values of dispersivity than they had expected. In the laboratory, in uniform sand, dispersivity is small. However, in the field, where the heterogeneity of deposits is large, even in what geologists consider uniform beds, the dispersivity is high. Theis had a laboratory experiment performed by Jim Cahill, in Herb Skibitski’s group at the USGS in Phoenix, Arizona, which demonstrated the role DOI 10.1007/s10040-007-0248-z

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of the refraction of groundwater flow vectors at the boundary between deposits of differing permeability. The diffraction created large values of dispersivity. Theis also showed that if an apparent resulting anisotropy between adjacent sedimentary layers was at 90°, a rotational groundwater flow field would be produced (White and Clebsch 1994). While photographic records of the experiments exist, very little was ever published. What was published was in very obscure conference proceedings. Theis was correct when considering a truly uniform medium—dispersivity is small. However, in the field there are no truly uniform media—dispersivity is large, and Thomas was correct. Theis became convinced of the importance of geologic inhomogeneities on dispersion and that field-scale dispersion would be large (Theis 1963).

Hubbert and Theis Hubbert and Theis were good friends, both served on AEC Committees. Hubbert had worked for a period, in the late 1930s, at the Illinois Geological Survey in the Oil and Gas Section that Theis’ friend, Al Bell, headed. My guess is that Theis met Hubbert during this period. I asked Theis about Hubbert; his earliest memory was being in Hubbert’s apartment in northeast Washington, DC during World War II. Hubbert had written his Theory of ground-water motion in 1940 (Hubbert 1940)—it is a remarkable paper, 159 pages in length, published in the Journal of Geology. It created a fundamental understanding of Darcy’s Law; in contrast, Theis’ 1935 paper was only five pages. Hubbert’s paper languished in the literature and had little impact on the hydrogeologists of the day. I asked Theis about this. He commented on the difficulty of having your ideas accepted by your colleagues. His comments remind us of how he struggled to have his transient ideas accepted. It was Jacob’s derivation that changed this—even if Theis’ intuition was correct.

Theis’ career As mentioned above, Theis went to New Mexico in the 1930s. He moved there in 1936 and spent the remainder of his career and his life there. In 1940, Theis wrote a paper that defined capture, which many of his colleagues thought was his best paper; we did not discuss the 1940 paper in the interview, although we discussed it at other times (Theis 1940). For those interested in Theis’ ideas regarding capture, I refer you to my paper The water budget myth revisited: why hydrogeologists model (Bredehoeft 2002). During World War II, he was on many special assignments, many of which located groundwater supplies for military bases in the western US. He spent one entire winter locating water supplies for the Alaskan Highway. In 1951, he was assigned to coordinate all USGS activities with the AEC; as a member of the important Nevada Test Site Containment Panel, he convinced the AEC to establish USGS groundwater investigations at a number of their facilities. The most successful of these were ongoing studies at the Nevada Test Site and at what now is called the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. Many of the individuals that staffed these investigations were Theis’ colleagues from the New Mexico Ground water Office of the USGS. In the early 1960s, Theis taught a graduate course in groundwater geology at Columbia University during the fall semester, on leave from the USGS. He retired in 1970, but one of his principal interests remained groundwater; he continued to come to the office almost every day. He died in 1987, at the age of 87 (Fig. 1). As I said in the citation for the Horton Medal, Theis is not one of those individuals that leave a legacy of numerous papers—he wrote a few milestone papers. He was a man who influenced several generations of colleagues, especially at the USGS. Mary Anderson (1989), commenting on Theis’ work on inhomogeneities put it well: …like other men and women of genius, he had an uncanny ability to foresee the problems that would be faced by future generations.

The interview

References

For those who knew Theis in his prime, the interview was a disappointment—it was a reminder that we all get old. Theis was a shell of his old self. He had been a handsome, affable young man, with lots of energy. Ray Kazman, one of Theis’ colleagues from the 1930s, had a really adverse reaction. Theis was 85, and retired for 15 years, when I interviewed him; his mind still was sharp—very sharp. He took time responding to me, but he remembered quite clearly. I considered him a friend, even though our generations separated us. I respected him greatly. (It was Ben Jones who had the idea for the interview; he was Assistant Regional Hydrologist in the Western Region, USGS at the time.)

Anderson MP (1989) C.V. Theis and heterogeneity. In: Moore JE, Zaporozec AA, Csallany SC, Varney TC (eds) Recent advances in ground-water hydrology. 1st C.V. Theis Symposium, American Institute of Hydrology Conference, November 1988, Tampa, FL, pp 14–16 Bredehoeft JD (2002) The water budget myth revisited: why hydrogeologists model. Ground Water 40:340–345 Clebsch A (ed) (1994) Selected contributions to ground-water hydrology by C.V. Theis, and a review of his life and work. US Geol Surv Water Suppl Pap 2415, 2nd printing with corrections, 70 pp Hubbert MK (1940) The theory of ground-water motion. J Geol 48:785–944 IAH (International Association of Hydrogeologists) (2007) Hydrogeologist time capsule. http://timecapsule.iah.org. Jacob CE (1940) On the flow of water in an elastic artesian aquifer. Trans Am Geophys Union 21:574–586

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9 McGlauflin AC (1935) Who’s who in American art, vol 1. The American Federation of Arts. Washington, DC, 1936–37, pp 419–420 Meinzer OE (1928) Compressibility and elasticity of artesian aquifers. J Econ Geol 23:263–291 Theis CV (1935) The relation between the lowering of the piezometric surface and the rate and duration of discharge of a well using ground water storage. Trans Am Geophys Union Part 2, 16:519–524 Theis CV (1940) The source of water derived from wells: essential factors controlling the response of an aquifer to development. Civil Eng 10(5):277–280

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Theis CV (1963) Hydrologic phenomena affecting the use of tracers in timing groundwater flow, in Radioisotopes in Hydrology. In: Proceedings of the Symposium on the Application of Radioisotopes in Hydrology, Tokyo, March 1963, IAEA STI/PUB/71 Proceedings Series, IAEA, Vienna, pp 193–206 Wenzel LK (1942) Methods for determining permeability of water bearing materials. US Geol Surv Water Suppl Pap 887, 192 pp White RA, Clebsch A (1994) Selected contributions to groundwater hydrology by C.V. Theis, and a review of his life and work. US Geol Surv Water Suppl Pap 2415

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