Hydrosphere Magnitude? EarthCache
Hidden : 9/8/2010
Difficulty:
1.5 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size: not chosen (not chosen)

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Geocache Description:


What is a hydrosphere?

A spring is a component of the hydrosphere, namely any natural occurrence where water flows to the surface of the earth from below the surface. Thus it is where the aquifer surface meets the ground surface.



A spring is a water resource formed 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, below which the subsurface material is saturated with water. 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.

Types of spring outlets

Seepage or filtration spring. The term seep refers to springs with small flow rates in which the source water has filtered into permeable earth.
Fracture springs, discharge from faults, joints, or fissures in the earth, in which springs have followed a natural course of voids or weaknesses in the bedrock.
Tubular springs are essentially water dissolved and create underground channels, basically cave systems.

So what should I know about this site?

The site that you have navigated to is a spring that is fed out of the Oak Ridge’s Moraine Watershed. Research on Hydrology of the Oak Ridge’s Moraine began in 1970 when there was concern about development in the area impacting the Moraine and its water system.



The Oak Ridges Moraine is a regionally significant hydrogeologic feature, and source of drinking water for more than 200,000 people north of the Greater Toronto Area. Approximately 70% of this population is serviced by municipal communal well fields and 30% by private wells. The Oak Ridges Moraine is a significant groundwater resource area for storage and recharge for supply of high quality drinking water and stream baseflow.

The surface watershed divides in the Oak Ridges Moraine often differ substantially from the groundwater divides. Indeed there are localized areas within the Moraine where lateral groundwater flow direction may be opposite to surface flow direction and opposite to groundwater flow direction at alternate depths. Most existing literature water budget and stream base flow estimates closing to surface watershed boundaries should be regarded as 'suspect'.




The moraine's hydrological system is inter-twined with a regional flow system not bound by the morphological limits of the moraine. For this reason, environmentalists and researchers promote an aggressive protection strategy extending beyond the moraine, thus ensuring a contiguously protected hydrological system. A number of features comprise the hydrological system of the Oak Ridge’s Moraine: - permanent and ephemeral streams,
- wetlands,
- kettle lakes and ponds, and their catchment areas,
- seepage areas and springs, and
- aquifers and other recharge areas.

The Oak Ridge’s Moraine's hydrological system is a major constituent of the Humber Watershed, so that any impact on this system will be of concern. Impact to the Moraine Water Shed can and would be felt on many other ecological areas. Research and mapping as shown the connections of the Moraine Watershed to a vast amount of other water systems.

Watersheds linked to the Oak Ridges Moraine:

Watershed
Nottawasaga River
Credit River
Holland River
Black River
Pefferlaw Brook
Humber River
Don River
Rouge River
Duffins Creek
Nonquon River
Scugog River
Pigeon River
Lynde Creek
Oshawa Creek
Bowmanville and Soper Creeks
Trout Creek
Wilmot Creek
Ganaraska River
Gage Creek
Cobourg and Baltimore Creeks

Magnitude?

There is a simple equation for measuring the magnitude of a spring. In order to do so your must capture the rate at which water is exiting the spring.

Magnitude Flow (ft³/s, gal/min, pint/min) Flow (L/s)
1st Magnitude > 100 ft³/s 2800 L/s
2nd Magnitude 10 to 100 ft³/s 280 to 2800 L/s
3rd Magnitude 1 to 10 ft³/s 28 to 280 L/s
4th Magnitude 100 US gal/min to 1 ft³/s (448 US gal/min) 6.3 to 28 L/s
5th Magnitude 10 to 100 gal/min 0.63 to 6.3 L/s
6th Magnitude 1 to 10 gal/min 63 to 630 mL/s
7th Magnitude 1 pint to 1 gal/min 8 to 63 mL/s
8th Magnitude Less than 1 pint/min 8 mL/s
0 Magnitude no flow (sites of past/historic flow)


To log this cache

In order to log this cache you will need to bring a container that can be used as a measuring device and some sort of stop watch. Navigate to the posted coordinates and provide the following:

1) Using your GPS provide me with the elevation above sea level in meters (Please do not post with your log)
2) Using your container and stop watch measure the rate of flow. Using the chart listed in the cache description tell me what magnitude of flow this spring is. (Don't forget to multiply by the number of spouts. (Please do not post with your log)
3) Take a picture of you and\OR your GPS at the cache site and post with your find log
4) Have fun! You are caching!

This cache was developed by a:

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