Groundwater chemistry and the Gibbs Diagram

The ‘Gibbs Diagram’ represents some of the key processes controlling surface water chemistry. This review highlights that the processes listed on the Gibbs Diagram may not be applicable for assessing processes controlling groundwater chemistry. We discuss the importance of geochemical processes governing groundwater chemistry in the Gibbs Diagram framework. We show that the processes represented on the Gibbs Diagram—originally developed for surface waters—are unlikely to represent key processes controlling the chemistry of most groundwater systems.