Spring (water) facts for kids
A spring is a point where water flows out of the ground. A spring may flow the whole year or only sometimes. This depends on the water getting into the ground all of the time (rain) or only once in a while (snow melting).
A spring often sends water down, along the land. This is how rivers start.
Some springs produce water that is good for health reasons. Sometimes towns grow by these springs because many people who are ill come there to get better. Such towns are called spa towns.
Contents
Formation
A spring may be the result of karst topography where surface water has infiltrated the Earth's surface (recharge area), becoming part of the area groundwater. The groundwater then travels through a network of cracks and fissures—openings ranging from intergranular spaces to large caves. The water eventually emerges from below the surface, in the form of a karst spring.
The forcing of the spring to the surface can be the result of a confined aquifer in which the recharge area of the spring water table rests at a higher elevation than that of the outlet. Spring water forced to the surface by elevated sources are artesian wells. This is possible even if the outlet is in the form of a 300-foot-deep (91 m) cave. In this case the cave is used like a hose by the higher elevated recharge area of groundwater to exit through the lower elevation opening.
Non-artesian springs may simply flow from a higher elevation through the earth to a lower elevation and exit in the form of a spring, using the ground like a drainage pipe.
Still other springs are the result of pressure from an underground source in the earth, in the form of volcanic activity. The result can be water at elevated temperature such as a hot spring.
The action of the groundwater continually dissolves permeable bedrock such as limestone and dolomite, creating vast cave systems.
Related pages
Images for kids
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On an average day nearly 303 million US gallons (1,150,000 m3) of water flow from Big Spring in Missouri at a rate of 469 cubic feet per second (13.3 m3/s).
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Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
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Fontaine de Vaucluse or Spring of Vaucluse in France discharges about 470 million US gallons (1,800,000 m3) of water per day at a rate of 727 cubic feet (21 m3) per second.
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Pruess Lake is spring-fed in the arid Snake Valley of Utah.
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Natural iron hot spring in Beppu, Japan
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Fontes Tamarici, in Spain
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The Mother Spring, Pagosa Hot Springs, Colorado
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Natural spring in Pennsylvania where runoff flows from above down through grass and rocks.
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Sokokura, from the series Two Artists Tour the Seven Hot Springs (Sōhitsu shichitō meguri) by Utagawa Toyokuni III and Utagawa Hiroshige, 1854
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Oracle of Delphi, red-figure kylix, Kodros Painter, depicting Pythia with a cup presumably holding water from a spring, 440-430 BC
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A Woman Drinks at the Carmen Spring, on West 175th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, New York City, by James Reuel Smith, C. 1897-1902
See also
In Spanish: Manantial para niños
