Groundwater withdrawals in an area can cause water levels in the aquifer system to drop, ultimately decreasing the flow from the spring. Human activities also can influence the volume of water that discharges from a spring. The amount of water that flows from springs depends on many factors, including the size of the caverns within the rocks, the water pressure in the aquifer, the size of the spring basin, and the amount of rainfall. This process often takes tens to hundreds of thousands of years to complete. As the process continues, the water hollows out more rock, eventually admitting an airspace, at which point the spring stream can be considered a cave. When it reaches a horizontal crack or a layer of non-dissolving rock such as sandstone or shale, it begins to cut sideways. When weak carbonic acid (formed by rainwater percolating through organic matter in the soil) enters these fractures it dissolves bedrock. Both dolomite and limestone fracture relatively easily. In Missouri, the largest springs are formed in limestone and dolomite in the karst topography of the Ozarks. Springs may be formed in any sort of rock. The hot water (over 300 degrees Celsius) coming from these springs is also rich in minerals and sulfur, which results in a unique ecosystem where unusual and exotic sea life seems to thrive. Recently, scientists have discovered hot springs at depths of up to 2.5 kilometers in the oceans, generally along mid-ocean rifts (spreading ridges). Springs are not limited to the Earth's surface, though. They range in size from intermittent seeps, which flow only after much rain, to huge pools flowing hundreds of millions of gallons daily. A spring is the result of an aquifer being filled to the point that the water overflows onto the land surface. A spring is a water resource formed when the side of a hill, a valley bottom or other excavation intersects groundwater at or below the local water table, below which the subsurface material is saturated with water.
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