Info. on Magnitude

[metaldector]

I'm doing some research on the Magnitude of Springs in Florida (amount of gallons of water per given time). There are a lot of web sites showing 1st Magnitude Springs but the data for 2nd, 3rd, or lower eludes me.

The only info I found on Little River for example is a discharge rate of 84.89³ ³/s ft.
Not being a familiar with that rating I need your help.

Does anyone know of a website that shows Magnitude for all known popular springs? I've spent hours on the web never finding anything but 1st Mag data! Thanks.

[StaceyS]

Try this

http://www.srwmd.state.fl.us/index.asp?NID=267

Stacey

[Sludge]

Or these:

http://www.dep.state.fl.us/geology/g...bulletin66.htm

ftp://ftp.dep.state.fl.us/pub/geo/we...of_springs.pdf

Russell

[Walter Pickel]

FGS Bulletin 31 (hard to find) and 66 (easy) will help you. There are additional bulletins and reports that are readily available from the WMD sites specifically.

[metaldector]

Your link shows Little River as a Mag 2 but no flow data. Thanks.

[metaldector]

Thanks. I've visited both those sites. Best info there is a 2nd. Mag Spring issues 10 to 100 cfs per second or 64.6 mgd to 6.4 mgd. I'd love to get a little more specific to each Spring. The range is very broad. Thanks for the links anyway.

[FW]

Remember that any numbers you find are "averages", since the flow changes with the river level, local rainfall, etc.

[metaldector]

Yes, I know there are variables that become averages. Never the less, some way is used to label each spring as a 1st or 2nd or 3rd magnitude spring. As cave divers we encounter variations in flow nearly every time we dive. The difficultly I’m finding on my quest is hard numbers. Even the math provided to me in this posting doesn’t add up to those published.
By the way FW you may have over looked another factor to flow variations, water bottling companies and draw down by growing Florida communities.

I thank everyone for your efforts in assisting me.

[Jerry]

You won't get a "hard" number; spring flow will vary everyday. Actually it will vary hour to hour due to tides, barometric pressure, river level, etc. The magnitude is based on multiple measurements over time.

Jerry

[rchrds]

Yea- Jerry is right. Where are you going with this? Perhaps someone might be able to point you in the right direction- or perhaps you need to research a little more the sources that are telling you a spring is a certain magnitude. If it is a government agency, someone did research somewhere and got a number from somebody- they dont just pull stuff out of their butts all the time. It just comes down to finding the right original source. And there aren't that many folks actually doing the sampling sets. Most papers piggyback on either a sample set taken by a grad student, a USGS field team (or sensor), or private contractor- there just isn't enough money in doing this kind of work, so there isn't that much of it actually done. (Same reason we (okay, most of us) dont get paid for making cave maps and such.)

Jason