Spring (hydrology)

A spring is any natural situation where water flows from an aquifer to the earth's surface. It is a component of the hydrosphere.

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 fissure—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.

Lithia water

Lithia water is defined as a type of mineral water characterized by the presence of lithium salts (as lithium carbonate or lithium chloride). Natural lithia mineral spring waters are rare and there are few commercially bottled lithia water products. An example of a noncommercial lithia water can be found in Ashland, Oregon's Lithia Park, a popular tourist attraction because of its lithia water fountain. The water is pumped from a spring to a fountain where thousands of people come to drink the water for its alleged health benefits. An example of a commercially bottled lithia spring water product is Lithia brand water. One other example of lithia water is Bear-lithia water, a mineral water from Bear-Lithia Springs, Virginia. It contains carbonates of calcium and magnesium.

History

Between the 1880s and World War I, the consumption for bottled lithia mineral water reached gigantic proportions. The most premium of all the mineral water brands were lithia waters because of their acclaimed health benefits. One of the first commercially sold lithia waters in the United States was bottled at Lithia Springs, Georgia in 1888. During this era there was such a demand for lithia water that there was a proliferation of bottled lithia water products, however only a few were natural lithia spring waters. Most of the bottled lithia water brands added lithium bicarbonate to spring water and called it lithia water. With the advent of World War I and the formation of the new US government food safety agency, mineral water bottlers were under scrutiny. The new agency posted large fines against mineral water bottlers for mislabeled, misrepresented, and adulterated products. These government actions and their publicity along with public works that made clean tap water readily accessible caused the American public to lose confidence and interest in bottled mineral water.