Neilans' reach - July 2007
From GeoMod
In July 2007, approximately 1 year after Dan Neilans' field work for his thesis, an undergraduate student (Mr. Cole Parrish) and I went back to Dan's reach to see how things had changed.
- Cole's web reports - including data collected
Key observations
One of the key observations of Dan's thesis was that groundwater discharge into the stream focused at specific points (eg. Spring A and Spring B in Image:Dan TE-4B.png and Image:Dan TE-4B.png).
One of our primary aims was to determine if these features still existed one year later. Our measurement are reported by Mr. Parrish here. However, on our way back from the reach to the bridge we observed at least two locations where groundwater was being obviously discharged to the surface at the river bank, and seeping onto a sand bar.
Spring 1
 Active spring discharging on south bank of the Loosahatchie river, approximately 100 m upstream from Neilans' reach. |
 The mouth of the discharge spring as it flows into the main channel of the Loosahatchie. Eyeball estimate of the flow rate is approximately 20 liters/minute. |
 The broad channel of the spring leads to a dead tree. |
 The spring is located on a sand bar (Cole Parrish for scale). |
 There appear to be signs of slumping near the discharge point itself. While the banks of the Loosahatchie show lots of slumping, mostly it is in the form of coherent blocks without the water-saturated toes that can be seen (possibly) here. |
 The red staining in the spring is typical of groundwater seepage areas in this reach of the Loosahatchie. |
Spring 2
 A second spring upstream of the first spring. |
 This spring has a lower seepage rate than the first. |
 This spring is also located on a sand bar. |
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