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[Grimlocke]

My latest attempt at a fortress took place oceanside, in 7 layers of black sand, between sedimentary stone, obsidian and many many aquifers.

All went well, safe for that last bit. Aquifers. I havnt had so much trouble with those due to my tendency to settle in mountains, but with this fort I had to make my main mining shaft through several layers of aquifer.

Through some dwarven science, I found out that aquifers still produce water when all orthogonally open tiles are walled off, that I can mine through aquifers when there is another aquifer below, and that my dwarf powered magma pump failed to push magma upwards (dispite having no diagonal channels).

So thinking I had enough to get through the first layer of watery sand I did some channeling, walled of a smaller bit of aquifer, and took to applying magma on the aquifer below that one. All went well, untill I removed the temporary walls that contained the mostly evaporated magma.

Not only did I have a flaming miner setting my barracks on fire (didnt mind that, it was kind of funny), there was also water being produced out of nowhere.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That water wasnt spawning while the magma and the walls were still there, or even before I pumped in the magma. Only after I finished forbidding my former miners oh so aluring !!socks!! and looked back everything was all flooded.

So what went wrong? Whats making that spot surrounded by constructions spawn water?

[Halceon]

Are those two tiles, perchance, directly under a tile of an aquifer? Aquifers produce water in 5 orthogonal directions, including down.

[Grimlocke]

Well, it seems they are. Hm. Thats odd, those squares didnt produce any water when they were open space above another aquifer or when they were an obsidian floor with magma on it.

I guess that aquifer above it may have checked for any fluid directelly below or aquifer anywhere below it? That would explain aquifers seeming to produce water diagonally.

Looks like ill have to rescience this...

[MrFake]

If there was magma one tile below, the water may have simply evaporated, but that's unlikely since it usually takes a 1/7th of magma with it.  If there was an aquifer directly below, the water would fall right into the aquifer and disappear, though you'd at least see some tiles of water.

It's also possible for aquifer tiles to shut off until jumpstarted by nearby water (nearby being a fuzzy term here).  But, this only happens in extreme circumstances, and you'd probably have to be hacking DF with something like DF Tweak to even see this.

You may be right about checking for fluid below.

Also, you can only push magma up to the level of the pumps doing the pushing.

[NW_Kohaku]

I think what you're seeing is this:

Aquifers are infinite water fountains, but also infinite water sinks.  If there is an aquifer below an aquifer, the water produced in the upper aquifer, if allowed to touch/drain to the aquifer below it, will drain into the lower aquifer at the same rate that the upper aquifer can produce.

If you destroy the aquifer below it, however, you have just destroyed the sink that was draining off the water created from the upper aquifer's fountain.

[Grimlocke]

The thing was, I didnt notice the aquifer above there before. So a basically had this:

AAA
# #
WWW
As a sideways view, A is an undug aquifer tile, # is a wall and W is aquifer water.

There was aquifer in the middle there, which I dug away by using channels and grates. There wasnt any water visibly falling there, so after I walled it up I was pretty confused when there was water coming from that centre tile.

I got it fixed by channeling through that top aquifer, walling that up and then walling up the middle one. Turns out to be a decent way to get rid of aquifers quickly, though it only works on aquifers you approach from the side and it will be tragic if theres no bottom aquifer to drain in to.