How do springs originate at the top of the hills and how do they acquire such volume of water?

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One explanation that I found was rainfall but it is not apparent that rainfall could contribute to such volume of water.

In: Geology

20 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Soak a sponge, and put it on a table. Put a plastic sheet over it. Soak a second sponge, and stack it over the plastic sheet. Then drip water onto the top sponge, until a drip leaks out the bottom and flows down the plastic sheet. That’s a spring.

Anonymous 0 Comments

A spring comes out of the side of a mountain or hill (not at the very top). Rain falls down the upper part of the mountain and seeps in to the ground. But then it hits solid rock or layers of clay, that stop the water from seeping lower. The water starts to pool inside the earth, filling up all the tiny, empty spaces in the soil and rock. The pooled water level inside the earth eventually rises so high that there is a spot where it actually breaks the surface, which is where the spring forms.

Now, to get out, the water still has to pass through various layers of rock, soil, sand, and gravel. Sometimes the opening in the rock that allows the water out is only so big and only has so much capacity – so the water table inside the mountain just keeps on rising. The higher it goes above the opening, the more pressure there is, and the water will come out faster and at a higher volume, and a high water table also means that even drying dry spells, there is plenty of water still in the mountain to keep the spring flowing.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Springs generally don’t originate at the top of hills. It’s not impossible, but, it’s not the most common place. Usually, if a spring is on the top of a hill, there are higher hills around it.

Water, even subterranean water, runs downhill. A spring is formed when more water collects in one place than can be percolated away through the underlying geology.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Rock can be like a sponge, with holes in it that fill with water, but it can also be solid and fracture. Fracture lines or fault lines can go up/down from the top of a hill to a lower point underground where there is a lot of water. If that water is has limited space in the rock, but more water drains down into that space, then the pressure of being squeezed in a too-small space can push the water up the fractures and fault lines, because they are weak points in the rock. And then at the top, you have a spring pushing water up and out with surprising amounts of force and volume.

Anonymous 0 Comments

So, water above ground tends to pool into ponds and lakes that are basically flat on the top. But water below ground (called an aquifer) is not like a lake. It’s usually moving according to specific patterns.

One of those patterns is that the water on a hill tends to follow the shape of the surface. Kind of [like this](https://images.app.goo.gl/TA4qHBC8iBXjbHWo8) (disregarding the interpolation lines). Sometimes a large rainfall can cause the aquifer to fill up and the top of the aquifer (the water table) will meet the surface of the hill and you get a spring!

However, most hills aren’t just lumps of one material. So you can get interesting things like [a perched water table ](https://images.app.goo.gl/LhX78Xxh2Z4D63PN7). Which can lead to a spring.

One rule that water always follows, it that it prefers the path of least resistance. So if there is a channel that’s easier to follow, it might even flow uphill! Like [in this image](https://images.app.goo.gl/8tEu698FoucUGXi37), the water is filtering down into the rock (in this case granite) but suddenly there is a fault which causes there to be something like a pipe. All the pressure from the water being under the rock causes it to go spurting up through the crack. In the example image, the water went so deep and came up so fast it’s a hotspring! (But not a geyser, you need different conditions for geysers). If it came up more slowly, the heat would be lost and it would be a regular spring.

I apologize if this is closer to ELI15. But it’s a very complex subject. I suppose the ELI5 would be “when it rains, there’s lots of water and it comes out at the surface”.

If you like this stuff, check out hydrogeology.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Answer:

Think of a rock mountain actually more like a sponge. A sponge seems like it fills with water perfectly evenly, but when you zoom in if you were to fill a sponge certain holes would fill faster than other ones. There are little pockets of water in the side of the mountains. Sometimes the entire mountain is full of water, but oftentimes there’s just a little pocket where it collects before pressure or gravity causes it to flow down to the next little pocket. A spring is just tapping into one of those pockets.

Anonymous 0 Comments

If there’s enough land higher than the spring, rain soaking the ground can come out well up a hill.

Otherwise, you get get [Artesian Aquifers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artesian_aquifer) while are pressurized from higher land, possibly some distance away. A well or passage into the aquifer can yield water, even at the top of a hill.

More commonly, this is an illusion – if you’re at the bottom of a steep slope, observing a water coming down the slope from apparently the top, you may be completely unaware that there’s a large, less steeply sloped upland area behind it, which collects water.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Springs are the result of the water table rising above the land surface. This can happen as aquifers fill over hundreds or thousands of years.

These aquifers typically form in cavities, or large holes, in the bedrock. These cavities are likely to exist/form in local depressions in the landscape. Therefore, they can form at higher elevations if the area is lower in elevation than the surrounding area.

Edit: My apologies. A few people pointed out the second paragraph is misleading. I described an artesian aquifer, while aquifers come in many shapes and forms. Regardless, the point is that a spring is formed when water stored in aquifers underground flow onto the Earth’s surface.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Although not all are on top a mountain or something, but when mountains are formed by pressure pushing it up,

It does for perfect paths for water to follow up.

Think of it like holding a balloon filled with water, when you squeeze an area,

It will disform and create a lump (mountain)

If you squeeze too much, the surface breaks and the water will come out.

Then water follows the path down with least resistance, other sources of water (spring, rain, melt water,…) do the same, all converge towards the same depressions in the surface creating rivers.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Is it ever the case that a spring on a hillside near a large lake is fed by water from the lake being pushed underground up the hill by the intense pressure of the lake?