An Earth Cache

Happy Earth Day

April 22, 2013

It is Earth Day today.  I was going to write something about saving the environment but then I realized that I have written a few blogs about that already.  Here are a few examples.

I compost with an outside compost pile but also with a worm farm. Worm Farming, An Unusual Type of Farmer

I make my own soap.  Zote, What on Earth is Zote?

I recycle.  An Old "New" Cabinet

 I repurpose items.  Easy Storage Container

So today on Earth day I am going to talk about Earth caches.  As many of you know, one of our hobbies is geocaching.  Geocaching As One of Our Hobbies  There are different geocaches.  There is a traditional, there are multi caches, there are virtual caches Example of a Virtual Geocache , there are unknown or mystery caches, there are event caches and then there are Earth caches.

The purpose of an Earth Cache is to share information about a particular geological feature of our planet Earth, and the object is to learn something about it.

Here is one that we visited featuring an artesian well.  It is very close to my daughters home, and we didn't even know it existed.  That is what geocaching is about.  It shows us things and areas that are right under our noses.  If you ever start doing this, you will be hooked.

At the most basic level an artesian well is a passage which allows water that has traveled through porous rock from a higher elevation, to rise to the surface at a lower elevation. The water is forced up the well seemingly defying gravity due to pressure which builds up between layers of rock.

Pipe coming out of an Artesian Well

When it comes out of the ground naturally it makes the ground around it very moist and a lot of moss grows

The water is pure and is excellent water to drink

Here is an excerpt of an Earth Cache recopied from geocaching.com

If you want a more technical explanation, go to this site.   http://coord.info/GC2CDGM

 Berlin's Artesian Well Earth Cache

In order to log this earthcache you will need to visit multiple locaitons to determine what underlying rock layers cause the artesian well to form at this location.

This earthcache will take you to three locations. One is an artesian well and the other three are locations that you can draw insight into the how porous (pervious) or impervious local rock formations are.

 
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artesian_aquifer 


To log this geocache you will need the following:
1: A one gallon jug :
2: A watch :
3: A thermometer:
You will need to e-mail me the answers to the following questions in your log:
A: What is the temperature of the water?
B: What is the flow rate of the well in gallons/min Example: It takes 15 seconds to fill the one gallon container. There are 60 seconds in a minute so by performing simple math it is determined that the output of the well is 4 gallons per minute.
C. After you have examined the rock layers at each location, e-mail me a description of the grain size or how well the water could flow through that type of rock/soil.
Finally,
D: (OPTIONAL) Please post a picture of you or your thermometer at the well.

Additional Hints

"herd" path leads from roadside

There are several wells throughout the area.  Here is another that we found.  Here is my husband with his GPS.  This one isn't hidden as the other was.  It is right off the highway and decorated in stone for all to see.