SPRINGS SEEN AND INTERPRETED IN THE CONTEXT OF GROUNDWATER FLOW-SYTEMS

By fortuitous coincidence, the GSA’s Hydrogeology Division and the concept of gravity-driven groundwater flow-systems started life almost simultaneously in the first two-to-three years after 1959. The coincidence was also fortunate for the concept because the paper proposing it was recognized by the young Division in form of the first O.E. Meinzer Award. This recognition was instrumental in popularizing it. During the following half century a much refined and better understood flow-system theory has been applied to a still, in 2009, growing number of groundwater-related problems in various disciplines of the earth sciences and peripheral disciplines.

In keeping with this past, the present paper seeks to explore the possibility of a further application of the concept. According to the proposed thesis, springs are but one member of a community of various groundwater discharge-features, the "virtual spring", which occur at the terminal ends of groundwater flow-systems. Because all the other discharge indicators also bear imprints of subsurface conditions existing within the boundaries of the systems’ flow-path volume, together, i.e., in synergy with the springs, they provide more information than springs could do alone.

Some possible results of interpreting “springs” in the context of groundwater flow-systems are exemplified by: explaining the types and concentrations of environmental isotopes in the Montecatini Terme thermal-springs, Italy; evaluating ecohydrological effects of planned land drainage, Grote-Nete basin, Belgium; advancing a new theory of hypogenic karst formation; understanding thermal-karst processes that may produce hydrocarbon reservoirs in carbonates, Hungary; solving the riddle of large differences in ²³⁸U, ²²⁶Ra and ²²²Rn contents in the waters of closely spaced springs, St. Placidus, Switzerland; and, mitigating the 200-year old danger posed by the Campo Vallemaggia landslide, Swiss Alps.