Diamond Fork (Fifth Water) Hot Springs || Springville, UT
- Julie
- Nov 27, 2017
- 3 min read
During our time in Salt Lake City, we did many things. You know, things like eating Mormon church potatoes at The Garage Bar and drinking cocktails at Beer Bar and Bar X. Fine, we also did cool things like hike to some hot springs. After life in New York, getting around Salt Lake City and Utah in general is literally a dream. No stop and go traffic. People driving pretty much as fast as they want. Easy access to mountains. Not to mention, you can quickly drive to actual, real life hot springs where you can actually see water bubbling OUT OF THE EARTH and you can actually swim in them and they barely smell like rotten eggs!
About an hour outside of Salt Lake City are the Diamond Fork, or Fifth Water, Hot Springs. We went during the early afternoon on a Tuesday in October, so there weren’t many people there. Apparently, Google says that it can get crowded in the summer and the evenings, and if you know me you know I generally trust Google with my life, but I can’t say for sure. To get to the thermal springs, there is an easy/moderate hike (about 2.5ish miles...it took us about 45 min to 1 hour of easy hiking). Some people heading there wore flip flops and such. I wore hiking boots and was happy that I did.
Now. Back to the point. Hot water. Magically (aka scientifically) bubbling from the earth. But how does this water get so hot? Hot springs are locations where water is geothermally heated by either the earth’s mantle, or by actual magma. Now, for those of you who did not recently take 7th grade science, the earth is made up of four general layers: the inner core, outer core, mantle and crust. We live on the crust, which is the thinnest layer, then right below it is the mantle with the magma. If you need a good science rap to remind yourself of the awesomeness of the earth’s layers, here you go and you’re welcome*.
(Nace, 2016)
In some hot springs, the water is being heated directly from magma. For example, Yellowstone National Park sits right on top of a magma chamber (Howard, 2015). This heats the water deep in the earth, and sometimes at this location, steam builds up causing geysers to explode. Since these hot springs and geysers are literally heated by magma, which can be up to 2,372° Fahrenheit (Evers, 2014), some of these locations are hot enough to boil you alive, which HAS happened (Guarino, 2016).
(Important Note from the Safety Queen: follow the rules, everyone).
Never fear, the water at Diamond Fork (Fifth Water) Hot Springs was definitely hot, but not hot enough to dissolve your skin. That being said, my pale skin was red after sitting in some of the pools where water was coming directly from the earth, so I had to move to some a little further downstream.
So we know that water from hot springs is heated geothermally, but how does the water even get that far into the earth? Well, much of the area around hot springs is made of sedimentary rock. Around Diamond Fork, for example, there are tons of conglomerate rocks.
These rocks basically look like a rock made of rocks that have been cemented together, because that is what they are (whoa!). Sedimentary rocks are pretty porous, so the rainfall can seep deep into the earth where it picks up lots of minerals. As it moves deeper into the earth, it gets hotter and hotter because it is getting closer to the mantle with the molten hot magma (aka melted rocks). Then, the water eventually runs into a crack or fault line (the boundaries and cracks between the earth’s tectonic plates). Finally, the water must rise quickly to the surface of the earth, oftentimes through larger holes in the sedimentary rock, so that it doesn’t cool before reaching the top (Cameron, 2005). Thus, you get hot springs!
So, next time you’re in Salt Lake City, add some not-boiling but hot and beautiful hot springs into your life!
*If you didn’t click the link for the science rap, GO BACK AND CLICK IT IMMEDIATELY.
Sources:
Cameron, W. (2005). Hot Springs. Retrieved from http://www.mountainnature.com/geology/HotSprings.htm#Origin on October 25, 2017.
Evers, J. (2014). Magma. Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/magma/ on October 25, 2017.
Guarino, B. (2016). Man who dissolved in Yellowstone hot spring slipped while checking temperature to take bath. Retrieved from http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-man-falls-into-yellowstone-hot-spring-20161117-story.html on October 25, 2017.
Howard, J. (2015). Vast Chamber of Molten Rock Discovered Under Yellowstone ‘Supervolcano’. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/28/magma-yellowstone-supervolcano-video_n_7153948.html on October 25, 2017.
Nace, T. (2016). Layers Of The Earth: What Lies Beneath Earth’s Crust? Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2016/01/16/layers-of-the-earth-lies-beneath-earths-crust/#7032475e441d on October 25, 2017.
Tfashady410. (2010). Mr. Lee-Layers of the Earth Rap. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiHRI_Z2Kgs on October 25, 2017.
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