Flowing Wells Spring Artesian Well
History:
Fact which is unique to this well is it was built to provide drinking water at Sue Reynolds School at the top of the hill in the 1930s. Enclosed in a tiny brick structure with water flowing from a pipe to the outside, Flowing Wells has been a popular spring for years. Augustans best remember the old swimming pool fed by the spring.
This Spring is one of many around the Augusta area but definitely my favorite. I wanted to place a cache here to introduce this Spring that has been around for many decades. Bring some empty gallons or bottles and fill them up...it can help to keep some anonymity. There is a very high chance of muggles being around as this place is very popular for refreshing and delicious and free spring water. Choose your time wisely because people come and go randomly.
What is an Artesian Well?
Firstly, artesian groundwater is the same as any other type of groundwater the only difference is how it gets to the surface. An artesian well is simply a well that doesn’t require a pump to bring water to the surface; this occurs when there is enough pressure in the aquifer. The pressure forces the water to the surface without any sort of assistance. Chemically and physically, artesian groundwater is not different than other groundwater, but it comes to the surface differently. Perhaps your drinking water from a well that taps an aquifer that is "confined". This aquifer is water-bearing rock (the pores and cracks between rock particles are filled with water) that is surrounded by other rock or material that does not allow water to pass through. So, the water in this aquifer is squeezed by the other rocks, creating pressure in the water-bearing aquifer. When an artesian aquifer is tapped by a well the pressure pushes the water up the well, sometimes all the way to the surface, creating a flowing well. Imagine it as a very wet sponge contained in a closed plastic bag. Put a straw through the bag into the sponge, hold the bag tightly around the straw, and SQUEEZE - that would be artesian water squirting you in the face.
Where did Artesian Wells Originate?
The first Artesian well on record was drilled in 1126 by a group of Monks in the French province of Artois, hence the name Artesian well.
Back then they didn’t have the luxury of a fully operation drilling rig like we use today and the aquifer was reached by brute force and a sharp rod known as a bore. The percussive drilling technique they used eventually broke through the rock and the water rose to the surface. Because it had seeped through many layers of porous rock in the aquifer many of the contaminants had been filtered out, providing a much safer and cleaner form of drinking water when compared with surface or river water.
An aquifer is a geologic layer of permeable and porous rock such as sandstone or limestone and that provides the water source for the artesian well. The aquifer absorbs and stores water and in an artesian well the porous stone is sandwiched between a top and bottom layer of impermeable rock such as shale or clay. This causes positive pressure.
This Healing Fountain is located at point where groundwater flows out of the ground, and is thus where the aquifer surface meets the ground surface. A Man-made pipe has been inserted in the aquifer to help bring that water up in a controlled way so that visitor may drink some or take some with them.
Dependent upon the constancy of the water source for this spring (rainfall or snowmelt that infiltrates the earth), it might be considered ephemeral (intermittent) or perennial (continuous).
Water issuing from the spring rises to a higher elevation than the top of the confined aquifer from which it issues. When water issues from the ground it may form into a pool or flow downhill, in surface streams. Sometimes a spring is termed a seep.
Minerals typically become dissolved in the water as it moves through the underground rocks. This may give the water flavor and even carbon dioxide bubbles, depending upon the nature of the geology through which it passes. This is why spring water is often bottled and sold as mineral water, although the term is often the subject of deceptive advertising. Springs that contain significant amounts of minerals are sometimes called 'mineral springs'. Springs that contain large amounts of dissolved sodium salts, mostly sodium carbonate, are called 'soda springs'. Many resorts have developed around mineral springs known as spa towns. But in the case of this spring, there is no significant minerals present. That is why the water has no taste or smell of any kind.
One end of Georgia's fall line, which marks the boundary between the hard rocks of the Piedmont geologic province and the softer rocks of the Coastal Plain, is located in Columbus. Marked by waterfalls and rapids, the fall line stretches across the state to Augusta.
Columbus Fall Line Coastal Plain is the youngest of Georgia's geologic provinces, making up almost half the state's surface area. The province begins at the fall line, which runs from Augusta through Macon to Columbus, and extends eastward all the way to the modern Georgia coast and southward to the Florida state line. The Coastal Plain is composed of undeformed sedimentary rock layers whose ages range from the Late Cretaceous to the present Holocene sediments of the coast. Geologic Features The fall line marks the beginning of the Coastal Plain and represents the place where the younger sedimentary rocks of the Coastal Plain rest atop the much older rocks of the Piedmont geologic province. The fall line, so called because it is marked by waterfalls, rapids, and whitewater, formed where streams flow off the hard, erosion-resistant rocks of the Piedmont onto the softer, easily eroded sediments of the Coastal Plain. Since streams can erode more deeply into the soft Coastal Plain rocks than they can into hard Piedmont rocks, the result is steeper stream gradients and waterfalls. Beneath Coastal Plain sediments are harder igneous and metamorphic rocks, such as those found in the Piedmont. Usually referred to as the "basement," these hard rocks occur at greater and greater depths toward the south and east, reaching depths of up to 10,000 feet or more beneath the modern Georgia coast. Coastal Plain rocks, then, essentially form a large, wedge-shaped mass, which is thickest along the modern coast and the Florida state line and thinnest along the "feather-edge" of the fall line. Deposits of Georgia's Coastal Plain extend with little change into South Carolina to the east and Alabama to the west.
High Falls is located along the fall line at High Falls State Park in Butts County. The fall line crosses the state from Augusta to Columbus and marks the point at which the hard rocks of the Piedmont meet the softer rocks of the Coastal Plain.
Coastal High Falls Plain sediments occur as layers, or strata, that incline gently into the subsurface toward the south in west Georgia and toward the east in eastern parts of the state. Because of this, the oldest Coastal Plain strata seen at the surface occur right at the fall line and are covered by increasingly younger layers to the south and east. These rock layers record the long history of the Coastal Plain and show that sea level has risen and fallen many times during the last 100 million years. When sea level was high, a shallow seaway covered much or even all of the Coastal Plain. During times of lower sea level, the area was dry land, with large rivers and broad floodplains. For this reason, Coastal Plain strata consist of alternating marine sediments (those deposited in the sea) and nonmarine sediments (those formed on land). There are several large-scale geologic features of the Coastal Plain in Georgia that have influenced's long history. Running southeastward through the center of the Coastal Plain is the central Georgia arch. This arch is characterized by relatively thin sedimentary layers, as compared to the thickness of strata in both southwest and east Georgia. Eastward from the arch, the Coastal Plain strata thicken, forming the southeast Georgia basin. This sedimentary basin is actually part of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, and its geologic history is closely related to that of the Carolinas. Likewise, west of the central Georgia arch is the southwest Georgia basin. Its geologic story is similar to that of the eastern Gulf Coastal Plain and has much in common with strata in Alabama. The origin of these features lies in the nature of the ancient crust beneath Coastal Plain layers (the basement). Areas of thinner strata, like those in the central Georgia arch area, reflect strong, thick crust which sank only a little under the weight of the sediments; the result was that sediments in this area never accumulated to any great thickness. In the basin areas, however, the underlying crust was weaker and thinner, allowing it to be pushed beneath the strata's weight so that more and more sediments could be deposited.
The Southeastern Coastal Plain aquifer system consists of four regional aquifers that are composed predominately of clastic rocks ranging in age from Cretaceous to late Tertiary. The southern and southeastern limits of the aquifer system extend past the coastline in most places. That is, the rocks that comprise some of the water-yielding units of the aquifer system are permeable enough to maintain their character as aquifers for some distance offshore. However, the aquifers contain saltwater with dissolved-solids concentrations of 10,000 milligrams per liter or more near the coast in most areas. The northern limit of the aquifer system is its contact with crystalline rocks or consolidated sedimentary rocks of Paleozoic age at the Fall Line, which marks the updip extent of Coastal Plain sediments. Rocks of the Southeastern Coastal Plain aquifer system were deposited in fluvial, deltaic and shallow-marine environments during a series of transgressions and regressions of the sea. Coarser grained, fluvial to deltaic sediments are located primarily near the updip extent of the aquifer system and consist primarily of coarse sand and gravel that form productive aquifers. Most of the aquifers in the system, however, consist chiefly of fine to coarse sand. Confining units within the system are mostly silt and clay, except for a thick sequence of chalk in Alabama and Mississippi. All these fine-grained materials form effective confining units that retard the vertical movement of ground water, especially where they are thick. The proportion of clay in the aquifer system generally increases in the direction of the coastline; thus, even though the system thickens in this direction, its overall transmissivity is much less toward the coastline. The interbedding of coarse- and fine-grained sediments is complex because of fluctuating sea level and resulting changes in energy conditions and in depositional environments. Rock types and textures may change greatly within short vertical or horizontal distances.
How are springs formed?
Springs may be formed in any sort of rock. Small ones are found in many places. In North Carolina, the largest springs are formed in limestone and dolomite in the karst topography of the region. Both dolomite and limestone fracture relatively easily. When weak carbonic acid (formed by rainwater percolating through organic matter in the soil) enters these fractures it dissolves bedrock. When it reaches a horizontal crack or a layer of non-dissolving rock such as sandstone or shale, it begins to cut sideways, forming an underground stream. As the process continues, the water hollows out more rock, eventually admitting an airspace, at which point the spring stream can be considered a cave. This process is supposed to take tens to hundreds of thousands of years to complete.
This Spring in particular flows through the native limestone, a sedimentary rock composed of calcium carbonate and is a rock of marine origin derived from the lime mud and ooze that accumulated on calm, shallow sea floors millions of years ago.
Water flow from springs
The amount of water that flows from springs depends on many factors, including the size of the caverns within the rocks, the water pressure in the aquifer, the size of the spring basin, and the amount of rainfall. Human activities also can influence the volume of water that discharges from a spring, ground-water withdrawals in an area may reduce the pressure in an aquifer, causing water levels in the aquifer system to drop and ultimately decreasing the flow from the spring.
The scale of magnitude is as follows:
0 Magnitude - no flow (sites of past/historic flow)
1st Magnitude - > 100 cubic feet per second (cfs)
2nd Magnitude - 10 -100 cfs
3rd Magnitude - 1 ? 10 cfs
4th Magnitude - 100 gal/min (gallons per minute) - 1 cfs (448 gal/min)
5th Magnitude - 10 to 100 gal/min
6th Magnitude - 1 to 10 gal/min
7th Magnitude - 1 pint to 1 gal/min
8th Magnitude - Less than 1 pint/min
In order to claim this EarthCache,
(WITHOUT REVEALING THE ANSWERS IN YOUR LOG).
A) Optional (Not Required) submit a picture of yourself at the
EarthCache
B) Email me with the answers to these questions:
1) What is the magnitude of this spring?
2) Is this spring ephemeral (intermittent) or perennial (continuous)?
3) There is a Stairway leading down to the well area.How Many steps are there?
4) After reading the information above. In your own words. How Do you think the arch in the center of the Coastal Plain(Central Georgia arch) affects the Southeastern Coastal Plain aquifer system?
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