Angel Warm-Springs EarthCache
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Not many Okanagan residents are aware that there is a Warm-Spring in Myra-Bellevue Provincial Park. Access to the springs known as Angel Warm-Springs is through a hiking trail that can be accessed off of June Springs Road. There is ample parking across from the trailhead. The roundtrip hike is approximately 6.4 kilometers, and takes roughly 3 hours.
Angel Warm Spring is above the McCullough road in the canyon section of KLO Creek drainage basin, approximately 300 metres below the Kettle Valley railway cut, on the lower northern slope of Little White Mountain. The average temperature of most of the spring’s locations (it is not one spring, but many) is approximately 23 degrees Celsius.
The area is underlain by gently dipping Shuswap gneiss and schist and small outliers of Chilcotin basalt accompanied by criss-crossing feeder dikes. The basalts range in age from Miocene to recent history and these rocks and associated fissures are believed to be a geothermal source. The area is within a region of high geothermal potential that includes much of the central and southern parts of the Okanagan Valley that is characterized by geothermal gradients ranging up to 70 degrees Celsius/kilometre.
Over a long period of time the stream has built a large mound of tufa 300 metres long, 150 metres wide, and up to 8 metres thick along the bottom of the valley of Angel Creek. Tufa is a variety of limestone, formed by the precipitation of carbonate minerals from ambient temperature water bodies. The deposit consists of grey to brownish, crudely bedded, cellular carbonate tufa (also known as travertine), forming successive lenses, each ranging from several centimetres to more than a metre thick, intercalated with gravel, logs, standing tree trunks, branches and twigs. The numerous cavities in the tufa are mostly the casts of twigs, sticks and other decaying or decayed and dissipated organic debris.
To log this Earthcache it would be appreciated if you could e-mail me the answers to the following questions (you do not need to wait for a reply before logging this cache as found):
1. The springs are bright orange in colour. What has caused this strange colouration?
2. The origin of the warm water is not definitively known. Where do you think the water is coming from, and what makes it warm?
3. Why do you think it is a warm-spring and not a traditional hot-spring?
4. The tree species near the spring differ greatly from those that you passed along the majority of the trailhead and throughout the park. What has caused this?
Not required but always appreciated are any pictures of the area that you would like to include!
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