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[asnys]

Hello, I'm a newbie, just started playing a few weeks ago.   My current fortress is on a half-desert, half-mountain map with no murky pools or streams, but the embark screen claimed I had an aquifer.   Thing is, I can't find the thing.   I've drilled test holes until I hit rock on half the map, spaced about 40 squares apart, without result.  The other half is a haunted mountain with a bottomless chasm full of the undead, so I'm not going in there anytime soon, but I dug an exploratory tunnel about 60 squares north from one of my existing shafts, without any change in rock type.

So, did the embark screen lie to me?   Am I just not looking in the right place?   And, if there is no aquifer and no other source of water, this means any dwarf that gets injured is pretty much doomed, right?

I don't know if it matters, but I'm playing 40d (I have a Mac).   The soil layers in the desert are one z-level of sand followed by felsite, alunite, or rhyolite; the mountain is mostly obsidian with a little alunite.   I haven't tried digging under the felsite yet, but the bottomless chasm suggests granite and gabbro down there.   There's a magma pipe smack in the middle of the desert (which is why I picked the site).   I've gotten some rain, but without murky pools to fill that doesn't do me any good.

[Di]

You could backup your save folder, abandon fortress, and see embark screen again. Aquifier can be situated in one biome, so you need to determine in which part of the sire this biome is. Also you should see on which z-level it is. It can be under the stone. Also you can look for damp walls of chasm.

And no they aren't doomed if they heal before dying of thirst.(Not a big chance thought)

[ancistrus]

Yeah, it lies.
Sometimes you pick an aquifer-free map(according to embark screen) that is next to tiles with aquifers and get aquifers.
Sometimes you pick a map with aquifer that does not have any(in a similar way).
However, aquifer in desert is a different thing. In my experience, deserts never have aquifers, despite looking like they do.

[Lord Shonus]

Falso positives happen, and sometimes you just got a tiny piece of the aquifer. Try backing up ypur save and running Reveal.

[Ilmoran]

Falso positives happen, and sometimes you just got a tiny piece of the aquifer. Try backing up ypur save and running Reveal.

To further this suggestion, once you do the reveal, go into mining designation mode; this will make "damp" walls flash blue, so you don't have to use k to look at every single tile.

[Dave Mongoose]

Aquifers can sometimes be in stone layers, so you might want to try digging a little further.

Definitely try under the mountain (although if you're worried about beasties from the caverns, take the underground route), and don't worry too much if you don't find one.

Water is not essential - it does mean you will lose some wounded dwarves to dehydration, but a good alcohol supply is much more important for day-to-day survival. Depending on how you defend your fort and how you equip your soldiers, you might not have many wounded to deal with.

[asnys]

You could backup your save folder, abandon fortress, and see embark screen again. Aquifier can be situated in one biome, so you need to determine in which part of the sire this biome is. Also you should see on which z-level it is. It can be under the stone. Also you can look for damp walls of chasm.

Embark claims I have aquifer in sand followed by rhyolite everywhere in the desert.   No luck with damp chasm walls.   I'll try a few layers down in a few of the wells, but I thought you could only have aquifers in conglomerate and one or two other sedimentary stones?   All the stone I've seen so far is igneous.

Embark also claims I have some trees, which I've seen no sign of, either.

Falso positives happen, and sometimes you just got a tiny piece of the aquifer. Try backing up ypur save and running Reveal.

I'll try that once I can borrow a PC for a few minutes.

Dang it, I really like this map, but there are oodles & oodles of undead, including a couple of undead fire imps lurking dangerously close to the surface of the magma pipe.   And the mountains are riddled with all the platinum and kimberlite I could want but not a gram of iron to be seen...

Thanks for all your help!

[Patchy]

I love aquifers, and try to start on them as often as possible. They generally seem to be the least laggy of the water sources for me except for brooks.

Anyways for your question, I've only seen the aquifer false positives in the various sand deserts.   I have seen aquifers in the desert though, they do exist. It seems that aquifers cannot exist on the first z-lvl under the surface. So if your sand layer is only 1 z-lvl thick it'll be a false positive, if it's 2 or more you should have an aquifer. The thing is you can't tell how thick the sand layer will be from the embark screen, so you jus simply have to drill right away and see. Generally if you hit the rock under the sand before you hit the aquifer there is nothing there, but make sure you dig far enough away from your magma vent, as that does tend to dry the aquifer up in a small radius around it.

[cyks]

If it is an error, try to find water within one of the underground caverns.

[Ilmoran]

If it is an error, try to find water within one of the underground caverns.

I don't know if it matters, but I'm playing 40d (I have a Mac).

No caverns (unless he lucked out).

[o_O[WTFace]]

I would copy paste the save, abandon the copy, and check which exact tile is supposed to hold an aquifer with F1,F2,F3.  My guess is one embark tile has a little edge of aquifer lurking somewhere, of course the embark could have lied to you also.