Cascade Springs is one of the major artesian springs in the intermountain area of Utah. It yields twelve to fifteen cubic feet per second flow or about 29 million liters or 7.5 million gallons per day. This is about 1800 glasses of water per second. When it first exits the ground, it is good drinking water at a temperature of 48 degrees Fahrenheit. Even with this cool temperature, it is about five degrees warmer than normal for groundwater in the surrounding area and indicates that it has traveled deep beneath the surface of the earth. In fact, it is believed that the water has traveled beneath the ground for a distance of about two miles.
About 65 million years ago in the Sevier/Laramide mountain building event, the bedrock in this area was fractured. Since that time, water has seeped through the cracks of a rock unit known as the Park City Limestone, which was deposited about 245 million years ago, dissolving it away and forming caverns and channels. These openings have created a plumbing system and the rock that it is found in is called an aquifer. It travels along this aquifer until an impermeable layer is reached at which point it flows to the surface. Cascade Springs is located where the groundwater surfaces through course glacial sediments from the last glaciations event about 30,000-10,000 years ago.
The underground water supply is being replenished by annual rain and snowmelt. Even though the annual rain and snowmelt vary from year to year, the volume of water coming from Cascade Springs is constant indicating that the aquifer is very large. This water is very important because it eventually becomes drinking water. One of the unique aspects of Cascade Springs is that it is currently geologically active. Within the springs, one can see rock terraces that create beautiful waterfalls. These terraces are formed from deposits of calcium carbonate which is carried by the spring water. These deposits are called tufa or travertine. The calcium carbonate is dissolved from the limestone and dolomite rocks that form the aquifer. As the water flows down the cascading section of the rocks, carbon dioxide is lost from the water. Algae also help in the removal of the carbon dioxide. As carbon dioxide is lost from the water, calcium carbonate is deposited forming the tufa terraces you see.
Please stay on all trails, and don’t drink the water. The water contains Giardia which will make you very sick. I rated this a terrain of 2; however, I did see a wheelchair on the trail while there so it can be done. Permission was given to publish this earthcache from Cheryl Butler with the National Forest Service—Pleasant Grove Ranger District.
To get credit for this cache answer the following questions:
1. Go to the posted coordinates. What is the rate of accumulation as measured under the boardwalk? If the sign is unavailable, please use 0.05 inches per 10 years.
2. Estimate the height of one of the terraces in the surrounding area.
3. Calculate the time required to form this terrace. For example, if the rate was 0.01 inches per year (NOT the correct answer!) and the height of the terrace was 10 feet (NOT the correct answer!), you would first convert 10 feet to inches by multiplying by 12. You would then take that number and divide it by the rate or (in this example only, NOT the correct answer!) 120/0.01 to get 12,000 years.
4. As always, feel free to post pictures even though they aren’t required.
I used information found from these references:
Forest Service Information Panels
UGA-28, edition 2: Geology of Utah’s Parks and Monuments, D.A. Sprinkel, T.C. Chidsey Jr., and P.B. Anderson, editors, 2003, 562 p.
http://geology.utah.gov/surveynotes/geosights/cascadesprings.htm