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[Vehudur]

I have no idea how to even start breaching this.  I have one layer of soil and one layer of stone above the aquifer, so I can get stone but that is still a gigantic task.

I didn't even know this was possible.  The most I'd ever seen before was five, as far as I can remember.

/head explosion

Oh and there's a necromancer's tower right next door and a goblin keep just past that so I'm going to have visitors sooner rather than later.

Any ideas?

Other bits of information:

The map is perfectly flat.  There is no volcano - this would be trivial with magma.

It's a scorching rocky wasteland.  There are no trees or any other plants*.  I have only the 50 logs plus three in the wagon that I brought with me until I hit the cavern layer or trade.

*Nor is there any other life on the map for that matter.  My dwarves and the pack animals are the only animals on the map right now.

...  On the bright side of things, I'm getting 700fps for some reason.  o.0

EDIT:

The map has coal and iron and flux but so far as I can tell they're all under the aquifer.  Somewhere down there is probably the first cavern layer as well - but will the caverns generate below the aquifer layers entirely?

[Callista]

You're going to need to use pumps. There's really no other way to approach an aquifer that big. Check the wiki for some details. The basic principle is that you use screw pumps to pump water quickly out of one gap in the aquifer and into another part of the aquifer, while your dwarves go down there and build walls to contain it.

With seven layers, it'll take a while. Getting them all underground first is probably recommended. Set up a temporary upper fortress, then start work on the aquifer. If it were me, I'd wall off from the outside work while I concentrated on the work, but that depends on how much Fun you want.

If you're new to aquifers and you really like this embark, you probably ought to save a copy of it to restore from if you make a major mistake.

And, hey--it's a source of endless water in the desert. That's got to count for something.

Yes, caverns will generate under aquifers. Aquifers are simply a tag attached to rock or soil layers, so it doesn't change whether caverns are created.

[Vehudur]

You're going to need to use pumps. There's really no other way to approach an aquifer that big. Check the wiki for some details. The basic principle is that you use screw pumps to pump water quickly out of one gap in the aquifer and into another part of the aquifer, while your dwarves go down there and build walls to contain it.

With seven layers, it'll take a while. Getting them all underground first is probably recommended. Set up a temporary upper fortress, then start work on the aquifer. If it were me, I'd wall off from the outside work while I concentrated on the work, but that depends on how much Fun you want.

If you're new to aquifers and you really like this embark, you probably ought to save a copy of it to restore from if you make a major mistake.

And, hey--it's a source of endless water in the desert. That's got to count for something.

Yes, caverns will generate under aquifers. Aquifers are simply a tag attached to rock or soil layers, so it doesn't change whether caverns are created.

I know the caves will still be there, but will they "clip" into the bottom of the aquifer?

I'm not new to aquifers, but the technique I normally use just won't work on one this size.

Fun is part of the game.  No walling off for me, lets see how this goes...

[SRD]

You could just do the normal plug technique.. Make a block like 12x12, drop it, repeat with 11x11, 10x10 etc.

[rhesusmacabre]

An aquifer in stone layers is much less painful than one in soil layers, as you can smooth the walls instead of digging out and rebuilding.

The technique I've used before is as follows:

First level above aquifer (z=0)
██████
█▼%%▼█
█,XX,█
█,XX,█
█▼%%▼█
██████
The screwpumps here are pumping from W to E.

Step 1 (z-1)
╔═╗███
║▲║█▲█
║▲║███
║▲║███
║▲║█▲█
╚═╝███
First smooth the walls around the holes, then carve out the central ramps (for access). The west side should now be "dry".

Step 2 (z-1)
╔═╦══╗
║▼║,▲║
║▲║X,║
║▲║X,║
║▼║,▲║
╚═╩══╝
Channel out the NW and SW corners and then build the pumps the other way round. Now smooth the shown walls on the east side, and dig out the tiles, with the up/down stairs in the middle.

Step 3 (z-1)
╔════╗
║▼,,▼║
║,XX,║
║,XX,║
║▼,,▼║
╚════╝
Finally, dig out the remaining tiles, optionally remove the up ramps from a previous step (for neatness), and channel out the other corners.

And repeat.

The bottom layer of the aquifer may present more problems, as you have to leave a wall unsmoothed on one side (rather than dig new channels) to allow for somewhere for the water from the other side to go, but you'll figure it out. And good luck!

[Vehudur]

I will try that.

If what you just posted isn't on the wiki, it needs to be.

Far, far more problematic I guess would be extracting the ore in the aquifer.  There's a lot of iron in there (I looked using DFhack).  But as for being able to get it?  That's almost a joke..  haha.

[jellsprout]

Double slit method works perfectly for this: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Double-slit_method
The multi-layer part works from the same principle as the method two posts above. You dig down from a top aquifer layer to lower ones, so they drain automatically and you can easily smooth the walls or build constructed walls.

[Vehudur]

I found a way through via mineral veins / clusters and I did not need to do any of that.

+1 for taking a third option?

[Koremu]

Always a good idea if you get a stack of non-Aquifer layers atop each other.

I would advocate the "drain into the layer below" approach, although I only ever use a 1*4 area with an attached stairway.

I also recommend the use of Grates for safety when doing it.

[Vehudur]

I ended up using an expanded version of the slit method to make a hole for my magma pump stack.