Living in the dry climate of the US Southwest, I’ve always found springs fascinating. For someone who grew up in the suburbs, water flowing continuously out of the ground with no pipeline or spigot somehow seems unnatural. But even more bizarre is hot water flowing out of the ground. NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center has an online queryable map of Thermal Springs of the United States:
“Thermal” doesn’t necessarily mean “hot”; the orange dots indicate water temperatures of 20C – 50C, while red dots run from 50C all the way up to boiling. But in all these cases, the water from the spring is elevated above what comes out of other nearby springs that aren’t heated geothermally. Most are concentrated in the more geologically-active western states, but with a few exceptions (most notably, the ones in Arkansas that include Hot Springs National Park). Using the “Identify” control to click on a thermal spring brings up its lat/long, water temperature, USGS quad, and more info.
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