The Sokoto basin in semiarid northwestern Nigeria contains Cretaceous and Tertiary semiconsolidated deposits that dip gently northwest off an oldland of pre-Cretaceous crystalline rocks. Until recent years the dug well has been the chief source of ground water for the Hausa cultivators and the pastoral Fulani inhabitants of the region. Borehole exploration sponsored by US AID and the Geological Survey of Nigeria with technical guidance from the writers of the U. S. Geological Survey has revealed that the basal section of the Gwandu Formation contains a productive artesian sand aquifer throughout a 5,700 square mile area. Transmissibilities of the aquifer proved to be as high as 180,000 Imperial gallons a day per foot but generally decrease towards the west. The free flow areas total about 1,000 square miles with pressure heads in boreholes up to + 83 feet above land surface and individual flows as great as 12,000 gallons per hour. Beneath the Gwandu, pressure aquifers in the Rima Group and the Gundumi Formation also produce flowing water in the lowland (fadama) of the Sokoto River. In the southern part of the basin, however, only one aquifer is present in the Cretaceous sequence, because the Gundumi aquifer is absent and the Rima aquifer apparently grades into the upper permeable section of the Illo Group. The quality of the water from all the pressure aquifers is generally quite good, although the iron content is high in places and salinity increases in the very deep aquifers.
