Thanks for the responses.

milum, your "zone of saturation" response led me to find the term I had been looking for in the first place: "zone of aeration."

This is actually fascinating.

1. The top of the "zone of saturation" is the water table. Check. That's easy to understand--how the water table changes height due to varying circumstances.

2. Now immediately above the water table is the "zone of aeration" which is itself divided into three layers:

a. Belt of soil moisture (uppermost)
b. Intermediate belt
c. Capillary fringe (and get this fascinating detail about the capillary fringe: "Belt above zone of saturation in which underground water is lifted against gravity by surface tension in passages of capillary size (i.e., .0025 to .25 cm in diameter)"--and that's really small!


So now I know that the zone of aeration is above the water table with the capillary fringe being directly against the water table. I don't know whether this is always true of the relationship between the capillary fringe and the water table. If the water table drops many feet for some reason, I don't know whether the capillary fringe would drop as much.

I also don't know whether the topmost layer of earth--lets say the uppermost level of surface dirt--is part of the "belt of soil moisture" (uppermost level of the zone of aeration), but I think this belt of soil moisture does go all the way to the surface.

Anyway, thanks again for the input.You guys are great! I think I've got it straight now.

By the way, "iversonsoftware.com/geology" is a good link for geological terms.

Best regards,
WW