Yountsville Spring EarthCache

If you could look under Indiana, you would see that it is a large anticline with the youngest rocks in the northeastern and southwestern corners of the state, and the oldest are in the southeastern corner. A broad line of siltstone, shale, sandstone, and minor amounts of limestone extends north and northwestward from the Ohio River at Floyd County to Benton County on the Illinois/Indiana border. These rocks are called the Borden Group, and it is within this region that the spring is located.

Now looking at the surface of Indiana, we can see that the spring is located in the Tipton Till Plains Region. The Till Plains occur from south of the Great Lakes Plains and continue through the center of Indiana. This fertile band of land known as the Till Plains in Indiana is a part of the great Midwestern Corn Belt. You will notice the landscape of the Till Plains can be described as having low hills and valleys with the highest point in Indiana, Hoosier Hill, to the east.

Boone, Clinton, Fountain, Hamilton, Montgomery, Parke, Tippecanoe, and Tipton Counties all lie within the Sugar Watershed. A watershed is a drainage basin, or an area of land where water in all its forms drains into a body of water. The watershed includes both the land and water components of the area. Adjacent watersheds are separated by some form of geographical barrier such as a ridge or mountain.

A spring forms when the side of a hill, a valley bottom or other excavation intersects a flowing body of ground water at or below the local water table. Water coming from an artesian spring rises to a higher elevation than the top of the confined aquifer (underground material that filters the water) from which it issues. A spring is the result of an aquifer being filled to the point that the water overflows onto the land surface. They range in size from intermittent seeps, which flow only after much rain, to huge pools flowing hundreds of millions of gallons daily.

Springs may be formed in any sort of rock. Small ones are found in many places. For example, limestone fractures relatively easily. When weak carbonic acid (formed by rainwater and carbon dioxide) enters these fractures it dissolves bedrock. When the water reaches a horizontal crack. crevice or a layer of non-dissolving rock such as sandstone or shale, it begins to cut sideways. As the process continues, the water hollows out more rock, eventually creating airspaces, the largest of which are known as caves or caverns. This process frequently takes tens to hundreds of thousands of years to complete.

NOTE: The water at this spring is not potable.

Contaminates in this area of the watershed include metal, microbiological, and pesticides among others.

The majority of soil types that the water flows through before reaching this spring is silt loam. For example, approximately 10% of the soil is the St. Charles series which consists of nearly level to moderately steep well drained and moderately well drained soils on glaciated uplands. These soils formed in deep loess and loamy glacial till under mixed hardwoods.

Springs are often classified by the volume of the water they discharge. The largest springs are called "first-magnitude," defined as springs that discharge water at a rate of at least 2800 L/s. The scale for spring flow is as follows:

In order to get credit for this EarthCache you must:

1. Post a picture of you and your GPSr with the spring in the background.

2. Email me with the following information within 3 days of your log:

a. What was the flow rate of the spring at time to your visit and the magnitude rating?

b. What was the temperature of the spring water?

c. What type of rocks make up the Borden Group?

d. In which plains region does this spring occur?

If these requirements are not met your log will be deleted.

sources: http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/WebSoilSurvey.aspx http://cfpub.epa.gov/surf/huc.cfm?huc_code=05120110aspx http://igs.indiana.edu/geology/structure/bedrockgeology/index.cfm