Hydrogeology of a Spring 

I -i In a Glacial Terrane

?

i * Near Ashland. 7 Ohio

? GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER 1619-A

i

g Prepared in cooperation with

I ?Ae OA/o Department of Natural

f Resources, Division of ff^ater
 EB 519ft

Hydrogeology of a Spring 

In a Glacial Terrane 

Near Ashland, Ohio

By STANLEY E. NORRIS

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HYDROLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WATER-SUPPLY PAPER 1619-A

Prepared in cooperation with 

the Ohio Department of Natural 

Resources, Division of Water

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON : 1961
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

STEWART L. UDALL, Secretary

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

Thomas B. Nolan, Director

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office 

Washington 25, D.C.
CONTENTS

	Page 

Abstract.-____________________________________________________ A-1

Introduction. _____________________________________________________ 1

Geography ________________________________________________________ 2

Site of the spring-_____________________________________________ 2

Ground-water supply in the area._______________________________ 6

Geology _---_----_____-_-__-_-___________--_____-____--__--_--._-__ 6

Consolidated rocks (bedrock) of Mississippian age_________________ 6

Unconsolidated deposits (glacial drift) of Pleistocene age___________ 8

Character of the aquifer that sustains the spring.__________----___- 10

Hydrology of the "big spring"_--__--_--__---__----___----------_-_- 13

Conclusions.______________________________________________________ 15

References._______________________________________________________ 16

ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURE 1. Topographic map of "big spring" area.____________________ 3

2. "Big spring" looking west across Interstate Route 71 ________ 4

3. "Big spring" as it looked before sides of cut were graded. ____ 5

4. Orifice of the "big spring" after sides of cut were graded and

	riprapped.-----_--__----------__-----------_------_--- 5

5. Sandstone unit exposed in ravine below the spring___________ 7

6. Map of "big spring" area showing contours on bedrock surface. 9

7. Generalized cross section-________________________________ 12

8. Map of "big spring" area showing contours on water table____ 14

TABLES

TABLE 1. Records of wells in the "big spring" area_____-_______-_-_-_- 16

2. Drillers' logs of wells in the "big spring" area._______________ 17

in

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HYDROLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES

HYDROGEOLOGY OF A SPRING IN A GLACIAL TERRANE 

NEAR ASHLAND, OHIO

By STANLEY E. NORRIS

ABSTRACT

In November 1958, near Ashland, Ohio, a spring having a discharge of about 

165 gallons per minute was opened by a power shovel during construction of 

Interstate Route 71. The spring is on the side of a small tributary valley, a 

little below the level of the upland. The water flows from a glacial outwash 

deposit of silt and sand that contains a minor amount of coarse gravel and is 

interbedded with thick till. At the spring orifice this permeable deposit may 

occur at a disconformity between till sheets of different age; beneath the upland 

immediately north and northwest of the spring the outwash lies on the bedrock. 

Higher on the upland, about half a mile from the spring, the deposit of silt, 

sand, and gravel pinches out of the stratigraphic sequence, and thin till 

generally overlies the bedrock.

The silt, sand, and gravel, together with the underlying or closely associated 

sandstone and shale bedrock, constitute an important aquifer which extends 

over a large area. The discharge from the spring, which is replenished by 

drainage from the overlying till, lowered the water table from 1 to 5 feet in 

an area of approximately 0.7 square mile during the period November 1958 to 

July 1959.

The sustained large discharge of the spring occurs in what is commonly 

considered a water-short area; it shows vividly that large quantities of water 

can be transmitted through glacial materials of generally low permeability.

INTRODUCTION

About the middle of November 1958, construction of Interstate 

Koute 71 (called locally the North-South Freeway) was temporarily 

halted in the vicinity of Ashland, Ohio, when excavators, making a 

deep cut in glacial till, opened a large spring on the northwest side 

of the cut. Water from the spring, which highway engineers estimated flowed at the rate of 165 gpm (gallons per minute), saturated 

the cut over a distance of several hundred feet and halted grading 

operations in that area until the flow was controlled. Unsuccessful 

attempts to stop the flow were made by bulldozing earth over the oriA-l
A-2 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HYDROLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES

fice. When this failed, the water was diverted into an underdrain 

through which it discharges into a small tributary valley. The spring 

flowed continuously through the summer of 1959, and when last 

observed, in late 1959, the flow appeared nearly as large as when it 

was estimated by highway engineers.

Such a large flow occurring in what generally is thought of as a 

poor area for development of wells received much local attention; 

the origin of the spring became also a matter of scientific interest, 

not only because of its high discharge, but also because the geologic 

and hydrologic features to which it is due probably occur in similar 

combination in other areas where large ground-water supplies generally are difficult to obtain. The spring is important locally in the 

movement of ground water and indicates that large quantities of 

water can be transmitted through glacial materials of generally low 

permeability.

The investigation on which this report is based was made as part 

of the state-wide cooperative water-resources program of the U.S. 

Geological Survey and the Division of Water, Ohio Department of 

Natural Resources. Field data were collected in the summer of 1959 

and these were supplemented by drillers' logs from the files of the 

Ohio Divisions of Water and of Geological Survey. The writer is indebted to J. J. Schmidt of the Ohio Division of Water and Stephen 

DeVol of the Ohio Department of Highways for data on the geology 

of the spring area. Mr. Schmidt made helpful suggestions relative 

to the origin of the spring, as did G. W. White and J. L. Kau of the 

U.S. Geological Survey.

GEOGRAPHY

SITE OF THE SPUING

The "big spring," as it is known both to local residents and to the 

highway engineers who were faced with the problem of its control, is 

4^/2 miles southwest of the center of Ashland, in the NE^NE^ sec. 

2, T. 23 N., R. 17 W., Mifflin Township, Ashland County, Ohio, in 

the glaciated Allegheny Mountain section of the Appalachian Plateaus physiographic province. The altitude of the upland in the 

vicinity of the spring is a little more than 1,300 feet, about 300 feet 

higher than the bottom of the nearby valley of the Black Fork of the 

Mohican River, the principal stream in the area. The upland surface is gentle to moderately rolling; the strongest relief in the vicinity 

of the spring is in a 2- to 3-mile-wide band along the Black Fork 

where the spurs and ridges of the strongly dissected bedrock have been 

only partly covered by glacial deposits. Minor postglacial dissection 

by short, steep tributary streams also has taken place. The spring is
HYDROGEOLOGY OF A SPRING NEAR ASHLAND, OHIO A-3

near the head of one of these tributaries, at an altitude of 1,244 feet, 

about 70 feet below the highest point on the adjacent upland (figs. 1 

and 2).

When the spring was opened, most of the water issued at the main 

orifice; however, considerable seepage occurred elsewhere along the

R. 16 W.

CONTOUR INTERVAL 40 FEET 

DATUM IS MEAN SEA LEVEL

Topography from U. S. Geological 

Survey Ashland quadrangle

EXPLANATION

o? 

Location of well or wejls listed in table 1

Geologic cross section shown on figure 7

FIGURE 1. 'Topographic map of the "big spring" area near Ashland, Ohio.
A-4 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HYDROLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES

FIGURE 2. The "big spring" near Ashland, Ohio, looking west across northbound lane of 

Interstate Route 71. Arrow points to spring.

highway cut, and saturated a sizeable area. At the time of the 

writer's first visit in June 1959, before grading operations had been 

completed, nearly all the flow appeared to come from the main 

orifice. The orifice was poorly defined; the water issued from the 

till at several places and wet an area about 20 feet wide (fig. 3). The 

main flow came from a 1^-inch-diameter pipe which had been 

driven into the place of the strongest discharge, and the pipe thus 

served as the main orifice. Water was discharged from the pipe, 

which is not visible in figure 3, at a point about 5 feet above grade 

level on the northwest side of the northbound lane of the new highway. When the slopes of the cut were graded the pipe was removed 

and the orifice was riprapped with large stones that restricted the 

flow to a small zone (fig. 4). The northbound and southbound highway lanes are separated in the spring area, their respective center 

lines being about 220 feet apart. At the spring the southbound lane 

is about 30 feet higher than the northbound lane, and consequently 

most of the water discharged at the spring flows under the southbound lane (fig. 7).
HYDROGEOLOGY OF A SPRING NEAR ASHLAND, OHIO A-5

FIGURE 3. 'The "big spring" as it looked before the sides of the cut were graded.

FIGURE 4. .Orifice of the "big spring" after the sides of the cut were graded and riprapped. 

603288 O 61 2
A-6 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HYDROLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES 

GROUND-WATER SUPPLY IN THE AREA

Until recent years when drilled wells became fairly common, most 

rural water supplies in the Ashland area were from shallow dug 

wells, cisterns arid, in a few places, springs. Today the majority of 

farms have drilled wells. Some of these wells supply all the water 

needed, but some supply only enough water for household purposes 

and dug wells may be used for stock. A few farms and suburban 

homes still use dug wells exclusively as their source of water supply, 

or augment them, especially in time of drought, with cisterns.

Typical dug wells range in depth from 15 to 25 feet, and many of 

them terminate in sand and gravel deposits, which either lie on the 

bedrock or occur as layers or lenses enclosed within the glacial till. 

The drilled wells generally range from 60 to 125 feet in depth and 

terminate in sand and gravel near the bedrock surface, or they may 

penetrate the uppermost few feet of the bedrock. Most drilled wells 

are equipped with deep-well pump and pressure systems and yield 

4 to 6 gpm. Most of the dug wells are equipped with hand pumps 

of small capacity. No wells having yields substantially larger than 

that required for household and general farm use have been drilled 

in the immediate area of the "big spring."

GEOLOGY

CONSOLIDATED ROCKS (BEDROCK) OF MISSISSIPPIAN AGE

The consolidated rocks in the spring area belong to the Black Hand 

formation of Early Mississippian age, which ranges laterally in Ohio 

from sandstone to shale. In the Ashland area the rocks of the Black 

Hand formation were deposited as a delta, and lateral variations in 

their lithologic character are abrupt. In the vicinity of the spring 

the Black Hand consists principally of shale, but some sandstone 

units occur. In the cut made for the new highway, 300 to 400 feet 

southwest of the spring and about 10 feet lower than the orifice, about 

20 feet of thin-bedded fine-grained sandstone, interbedded with shale, 

is exposed. Shale is exposed generally in the lower parts of two small 

ravines that head near the spring; however, in one of these ravines, 

at altitude about 1,150 feet, another sandstone unit is exposed. This 

lower unit (fig. 5) consists of about 8 feet of thickly bedded, blocky, 

somewhat friable sandstone. Both of the exposed sandstone units are 

probably capable of transmitting water at rates sufficient to sustain 

home or farm wells. The upper sandstone immediately underlies the 

glacial drift in parts of the upland near the spring and probably is 

the source of water to several wells which are reported by their owners 

to be dug to the top of the bedrock. The area! extent of the sand-
HYDROGEOLOGY OF A SPRING NEAR ASHLAND, OHIO A-7

stone units cannot be determined from the few drillers' logs of the 

area, but it is reasonable to suppose that they extend at least over 

several tens, if not hundreds, of acres.

In addition to the wells drilled for water supply in the spring 

area, several deep wells have been drilled for natural-gas storage. 

Keported in all the logs of the deep wells is an unbroken sequence of 

shale extending from the bedrock surface downward to the Berea 

sandstone. Typical of these logs is that of a well drilled in 1952 on 

the farm of John S. Kohler. The well is about 1,000 feet northeast 

of the spring, at an altitude of 1,293 feet (fig. 1).

Log of gas-storage well, John 8. Kohler farm

Thickness Depth

(feet) (feet)

Soil and clay_____________________________ 15 15

Sand and gravel____________________________ 78 93

Shale _________________________________ 627 720

Berea sandstone_____ ___________ - 65 785

The Kohler gas-storage well should have penetrated the lower of 

the two sandstone units, if the unit occurs in the sequence at that site; 

however, the fact that sandstone was not logged does not rule out the 

possibility that it is present. The driller simply may have neglected 

to report a thin sandstone stratum in the thick shale section. MoreFIGUEB 5. Sandstone unit of the Black Hand formation, exposed in ravine below the

spring.
A-8 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HYDROLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES

over, this log seems in error in showing such a thick sand and gravel 

section above the bedrock. Data from other wells and surface exposures indicate that the unconsolidated deposits in that area consist 

chiefly of glacial till.

UNCONSOLIDATED DEPOSITS (GLACIAL DRIFT) OP 

PLEISTOCENE AGE

In preglacial times the consolidated rocks in the Ashland area were 

eroded by streams that carved a system of steep, narrow valleys. 

This pre-Pleistocene stream system was similar in size and direction 

of flow to the modern drainage system, and the courses of the modern 

streams coincide generally with those of the preglacial valleys. 

Figure 4 shows that the "big spring" is located near the head of a 

small preglacial stream system whose main stem is south of the spring 

and roughly parallel to the new highway. The spring is on the north 

side of a formerly southwest-flowing tributary that probably rose, 

as does its modern counterpart, on the nearby upland to the north 

and east.

The contour map of the bedrock surface (fig. 6), which is based 

largely on the records of wells, shows that the preglacial streams had 

cut their valleys to about 1,100 feet altitude in the general area of the 

spring. The altitude of the bedrock at the spring, as computed 

from the map, is about 1,160 feet; the depth to bedrock, therefore, is 

about 80 feet.

Glaciers advanced and retreated several times over the Ashland 

area and generally deposited till, a compact mixture of clay, silt, sand, 

and stones, which in places is interbedded with or underlain by silt, 

sand, and gravel. Some of the till deposits have been differentiated 

and related to specific glacial episodes. Near Ashland, G. W. White, 

(1959, oral communication), recognized at least two tills, each traceable over wide areas as distinct stratigraphic units, which were 

deposited during successive ice advances. These two tills are separated generally by remnants of a soil which was formed during an 

interval between the glacial advances, when the area was free of ice.

The buried soil, which is evident in the Ashland area as a reddish 

streak in fresh drift exposures, was discernible at several places along 

the new highway while construction was in progress. It was briefly 

exposed near the spring, in June of 1959, near the top of the highway 

cut, about 25 feet above the orifice. Over wide areas the buried soil 

is absent, having been removed by abrasion of the ice which deposited 

the upper till. Locally, though not in the immediate area of the 

spring, a thin, poorly sorted gravel lies at the contact of the buried 

soil and the overlying till.
HYDROGEOLOGY OF A SPRING NEAR ASHLAND, OHIO A-9

The buried soil is clear evidence of a widespread disconformity in 

the glacial sequence. Other disconformities, not so clearly marked, 

occur in the till sequence, below the buried soil. Permeable zones 

formed by silt, soil, and gravel occur at some of these disconformities. 

The till at the "big spring" was not exposed clearly enough to show

R. 17 W

Location of well

Top number refers to we/1 listed in table 

1 Middle number gives depth to bedrock. Plus sign indicates that bedrock 

was not reached. Bottom number is 

altitude of bedrock

Location of bedrock exposure 

Axes of buried valleys

CONTOUR INTERVAL 50 FEET 

Topography from U S Geologica DATUM IS MEAN SEA LEVEL

Survey Ashland quadrangle

FIQCKB 6. Map of the "big spring" area showing contours on bedrock surface.
A-10 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HYDROLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES

definitely that the permeable zone from which the spring discharges 

occurs at a disconformity, though evidence from nearby areas 

strongly suggests this. White (1959, written communication) stated:

In Richland County several miles southwest of the "big spring," deep cuts for 

the superhighway exposed a persistent layer of silt, sand, and gravel from a few 

inches to ten feet or more in thickness. This stratum appears to separate two 

tills, which lie below a buried soil correlated with that lying 25 feet or so above 

the "big spring." It is therefore probable that the aquifer here described also 

occurs at a disconformity at a similar stratigraphic position.

The sustained high discharge of the spring shows that the aquifer 

that feeds it is of wide areal extent. The same evidence indicates that 

the aquifer is of fairly high permeability and of considerable thickness.

CHARACTER OF THE AQUIFER THAT SUSTAINS THE SPRING

The "big spring" flows from a permeable zone in the lower of the 

two till units recognized by White. When first observed by the writer, 

several months after the cut had been roughly graded (fig. 3), the 

water issued principally from a 4-inch-thick bed of sand and gravel 

which formed a local discontinuity in an otherwise homogeneousappearing deposit of brownish-gray till. This sand and gravel 

stratum appeared to descend sharply into the till, and the water to rise 

to the level of the discharge point.

The gravel fraction of the material exposed at the orifice consisted 

of poorly sorted angular to subangular pebbles, which apparently 

have been washed from the surrounding till. J. J. Schmidt (written 

communication, 1960), who observed the spring soon after the cut 

was made, said the flow originally was from a permeable zone formed 

entirely of fine sand and silt and containing no gravel. Schmidt 

further described the flow as coming from "blue till, perhaps 3 inches 

below the contact with the upper yellow till"; his description indicates 

that the orifice occurs near the top of the unoxidized zone in the lower 

till unit.

Test borings made by highway engineers indicate that the sand and 

silt formerly exposed at the orifice is part of a much larger deposit that 

underlies the highway at shallow depth in the vicinity of the spring. 

Soon after the spring was opened, the engineers sunk 13 bore holes on 

and along the highway in the immediate vicinity of the spring. The 

depth of the bore holes ranged from 5 to 41 feet; however, because the 

holes either were located well above the spring on the highway embankment or because drilling ceased whenever water-bearing silt or sand 

and gravel was penetrated, none reached to more than a few feet below 

the level of the orifice. Coarse sand and gravel were reported from 

only two of the test holes; in one of these holes water rose abruptly, 

when the sand and gravel unit was reached, to an altitude of 1,242 

feet, about 2 feet below the level of the orifice. The other test borings
HYDROGEOLOGY OF A SPRING NEAR ASHLAND, OHIO A-ll

terminated in what the highway engineers called "silt" or "sandy 

silt." According to Schmidt, who was present during the test boring, 

this material was homogeneous in appearance, was uniform in composition, and probably represented a stratified deposit, similar to that 

exposed at the orifice.

The sandy silt that underlies the highway in the vicinity of the 

spring is, in all probability, part of the fine sand and silt deposit 

formerly exposed at the orifice (fig. 7). Had the highway cut been 

but a few feet deeper, the silt would have been exposed at grade level 

and the main discharge no doubt would have been from there, rather 

than from the present orifice. As it was, water in the underlying silt 

caused what the engineers termed "sand boils" to occur for 300 feet 

along the grade northeast of the spring. The sand boils were probably caused by hydrostatic pressure that forced the water in the silt 

upward through a thin cover of till.

A study of well records from the area north of the spring shows 

that the sand and silt unit is not of widespread distribution; it appears 

to be confined principally to a shallow depression in the bedrock, the 

center of which lies a few hundred feet northwest of the orifice. Logs 

of wells 16, 20, and 21 (table 2) report sand or sand and gravel at 

altitudes ranging from 1,215 to 1,236 feet, not far beneath the altitude 

of the'orifice. Sand and gravel were not reported from well 17, 

drilled at the John Kohler residence about 1,000 feet northeast of the 

spring, nor from wells 9,13, and 14, drilled farther from the spring in 

the same general area. Furthermore, as stated previously, the report 

that sand and gravel occurred between depths of 15 and 93 feet at the 

site of the gas-storage well drilled on the John Kohler farm is believed 

in error; the sand and gravel reported in that well probably are stony 

till. However, even if a sand and gravel deposit as thick as reported 

does occur at the site of the gas-storage well, such occurrence does not 

appreciably alter the evidence which points to a restricted deposit of 

stratified material in the vicinity of the spring. This stratified 

deposit probably originated as glacial outwash laid down by meltwater confined to a local basin. Such a basin may have been formed 

by a tongue of ice damming the tributary bedrock valley over which 

the spring occurs.

If the silt, sand, and gravel deposit is relatively small in areal 

extent, it can constitute only a small part of the aquifer that sustains 

the spring; the whole aquifer probably includes the upper part of 

the bedrock. The silt, sand, and gravel unit lies on the bedrock in 

the area immediately north and northwest of the spring where it 

evidently received much or most of the water discharged at the orifice. 

It acts very much as a farmer's field-drain tile in collecting and conducting water from a large area to the orifice.
A-12 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HYDROLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES

133J NI 'aaniinv
HYDROGEOLOGY OF A SPRING NEAR ASHLAND, OHIO A-13

HYDROLOGY OF THE "BIG SPRING"

The "big spring" represents a conspicuous point of discharge of 

an aquifier, of wide areal extent, that consists mostly of silt and sand 

part of which is exposed at the orifice and the upper part of the 

shale and sandstone bedrock. Before the spring was opened, the 

aquifer probably discharged naturally in the same area through 

springs and seeps, though at a much slower rate. Opening the spring 

was like opening wider a valve in a water- supply system, the result 

being to increase the rate of natural discharge. This discharge affected ground-water levels over a wide area, as shown by measurements made July 7-8, 1959, in 19 wells in the vicinity of the spring. 

The water-table contour map (fig. 8), which is based on these measurements, reveals an elongated cone of depression having its apex at 

the spring and extending nearly a mile to the north and northeast. 

The cone of depression underlies an area of approximately 0.7 square 

mile.

It may at first seem paradoxical that the major development of the 

cone of depression occurred in the area north and northeast of the 

spring, rather than in the area to the north and northwest where the 

silt, sand, and gravel deposit is thickest. The principal reason for 

this seeming contradiction is that the tei'rane is highest north and 

northeast of the spring, and the slope of the land generally determines 

the direction of natural drainage in the area. The slope of the water 

table, which is governed by the altitude o:E the outlet at the orifice, is 

relatively steep in that direction and, consequently, most of the flow 

at the spring is sustained by drainage from the higher areas to the 

north and northeast. The ground water flows generally southwestward into the buried silt, sand, and gravel deposit through which it 

is conducted, probably with little additional head loss, to the orifice. 

This deposit functions as a detention reservoir in stabilizing the 

discharge from the spring.

Water-table conditions prevail generally in upland areas where 

thin till overlies the bedrock, and artesian conditions prevail in the 

areas where thick till overlies the silt, sand., and gravel deposit. Most 

of the wells measured in the vicinity of the spring are shallow watertable wells dug in the till. The cone of depression thus indicates 

the area where the greatest amount of head-lowering due to leakage 

from the till takes place.

The amount of lowering of the ground-water level is not uniform in 

the area underlain by the cone of depression, and the water level in 

wells near the spring, as would be expected, declines much more than 

that in wells near the periphery of the cone of depression. For 

example, measurements made at the beginning and at the end of a
A-14 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HYDROLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES

99-day period between May 13 and August 20, 1959, in three wells 

located near the axis of the cone of depression, about three-fourths 

mile north of the spring, show that the water table declined 4 feet 

in well 9 and more than 7 feet in wells 10 and 12. Both the latter 

wells were dry at the time of the final measurement, on August 20,

R. 17 W R.16W.

CONTOUR INTERVAL 10 FEET 

DATUM IS MEAN SEA LEVEL

Topography from U S Geological 

Survey Ashland quadrangle

EXPLANATION 

11

28 +

Location of well

Top number refers to well listed in tobli 

1. Middle number gives depth to wate

Plus sign indicates well was dry. Eotton 

number is altitude of water table

Dashed line encloses area affected 

by spring on July 7-8, 1959

FIGURE 8. Map of the "big spring" area showing contours on water table, based on 

measurements made July 7-8, 1959.
HYDROGEOLOGY OF A SPRING NEAR ASHLAND, OHIO A-15

1959, and the actual amount of lowering of the ground-water level at 

those sites is not known. According to the owners, these wells had 

never gone dry before during their observations which extended back 

over many years.

In the period May 13 to August 20 the average decline in groundwater levels in the 0.7 square mile area underlain by the cone of 

depression would have been 1.1 feet if a total outflow at the spring of 

approximately 23 million gallons and a specific yield of 15 percent 

for the sediments being drained are assumed.

Of course not all the lowering of the ground-water level in the 

area was due to the discharge at the spring. The period of observation was one of little or no recharge in 'Ohio, during which groundwater levels would normally decline generally. Records maintained 

by the Ohio Division of Water show that the water levels in four shallow wells, widely scattered but nevertheless typical of the wells in the 

spring area, declined from 2 to about 6.5 feet in the period May 13 

to August 20. The average decline in these four observation wells 

over the specified period was 2.6 feet. On the basis of these comparisons, it seems probable that the discharge at the spring has lowered 

water levels 5 or more feet in some wells.

CONCLUSIONS

Deposits of silt or sand and gravel commonly occur in till, many 

of them at disconformities between till sheets of different ages. This 

relationship in northeastern Ohio has been described by White (1960), 

in east-central Indiana by Gamble (1958, p. 37), and in other areas 

by other geologists. Buried sand and gravel deposits that originated 

as an outwash plain may be several tens of feet thick and may underlie several square miles, as they do in parts of western and central 

Ohio (Goldthwait, R. P., 1948, p. 34; 1950, p. 18; Norris, 1959, p. 

343). Such deposits that originated as valley-train deposits and 

that were laid down in definite channels extending away from the 

ice front are correspondingly linear in shape and may be highly 

variable in thickness. These buried sand and gravel deposits constitute zones of high permeability in the glacial deposits, and are 

highly important in ground-water circulatory systems in areas of 

glacial terrane. They function much as do open joints and solution 

cavities in limestone in conducting water through an otherwise poorly 

permeable medium.

The "big spring" illustrates the special effects on the regional 

hydrology of a permeable deposit bedded in till. Here the deposit 

functions principally as a conduit through which water from the 

more extensive bedrock part of the aquifer is discharged to the sur-
A-16 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HYDROLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES

face. The large quantity of water transmitted indicates the potential 

importance of many such interbedded deposits as sources of ground 

water in areas of glacial terrane.

REFERENCES

Gamble, E. E., 1958, Descriptions and interpretations of some Pleistocene sections in Wayne County, Indiana: Richmond, Earlham College Sci. Bull. 

3, 41 p.

Goldthwait, R. P., 1948, Glacial geology in Water resources of Montgomery 

County, Ohio: Ohio Water Res. Board Bull. 12, p. 32-36.

 1950, Wisconsin glacial deposits, in The water resources of Greene County, 

Ohio: Ohio Dept. Nat. Res., Div. Water Bull. 19, p. 13-19.

Norris, S. E., Buried topography and its relation to an important aquifer in 

Franklin County, Ohio: Ohio Jour. Sci., v. 59, p. 341-343.

White, G. W., 1960, Classification of Wisconsin glacial deposits in northeastern 

Ohio: U.S. Geol. Survey Bull. 1121-A.

TABLE 1. Records of wells in the "big spring" area

Well

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

>9 

10 

11 

12 

113 

U4 

15 

116 

117 

18 

19 

120 

121 

22 

123 

24

Owner

Mrs. Hiller... __ .. ...

Chester Swank __ .. 

...-do..... ... 

Dale Dohner.. ........ 

C. E. Roland .........

Jas. Van Bremen ...... 

A. H. Wickham .......

Henry Ohl ............

 -do . 

John Kohler.-.. ......

F. W. White. __ ....

D. Brandt ______

J. C. Shannon .........

Altitude 

above sea 

level (feet)

1,282 

1,282 

1,275 

1,280 

1,280 

1,260 

1,280 

1,285 

1,298 

1,300 

1,305 

1,298

1,300 

1,302 

1,282 

1,283 

1,285 

1,308

1,250 

1,265 

1,285 

1,235 

1,282 

1,282

Type of well

Dug .

. do __ .... 

..... do... ......

 do .. 

 -do. ...

..... do... ... ... 

Drilled.. 

Dag...... .

Drilled.... .

Dug... 

 do..... - 

 -do 

Drilled 

 -do 

Dug..... 

DrilloH

 -do 

 .do .... .

Dug..... .

Drilled.. 

 do 

Drilled . 

Depth 

of well 

(feet)

18 

16 

16 

26 

20 

20 

32 

21 

43 

25 

28 

18 

88 

93 

19 

87 

122 

67 

17 

98 

76 

21 

198 

25

Depth 

to which 

well is 

cased 

(feet)

18 

16 

16 

26 

20 

20 

32 

21 

30 

25 

28 

18 

42 

62 

19 

87 

118 

? 

17 

98 

76 

21 

198 

25

Water level

Feet below 

surface

15.6 

7.6 

9.2 

15.5 

18.2 

8.6 

14.9 

8.7 

28.2 

24.0 

Dry 

13.8 

30.2 

34.1 

8.0

12.5

16.4 

47.5 

16.5

Date of 

measurement

7-8-59 

7-8-59 

7-8-59 

7-8-59 

7-8-59 

7-8-59 

7-8-59 

7-8-59 

7-7-59 

7-7-59

7-7-59 

7-7-59 

7-7-59 

7-7-59 

7-8-59

7-8-59

7-8-59 

7-8-59 

7-8-59

> Log given in table 2.
HYDROGEOLOGY OF A SPRING NEAR ASHLAND, OHIO A-17

TABLE 2. Drillers' logs of wells in the "big spring" area

[Wells described in table 1, located in fig. 1] Thicknets Depth 

Well 9 (feet) (feet)

Clay -_-______-_________-___________-_-_-_---__-__-___ 11 11

Clay and gravel_---_-_____-___-_-___-_____-___-_________-_ 14 25

Gray clay..__________________________.___ 5 30

Gray shale (water at 37 ft)_-_-_---_-____-__------_--___-_ 13 43

Well 13

Clay______________._______._--___-___----_--_--__._-_-- 42 42

Rock..__________________._.._____.______ 46 88

Well 14 

Clay.....________________________________________________ 62 62

Rock____________________.______________ 31 93

Well 16

Clay...-._-_....._...__..__._.._._......_...._._._...... 6 6

Gravel»_._._...__..._.__._.__.._..___.__....__..._.._.._ 12 18

Gray sand--_-__-_--_____-_-_-_--__..___________._-_____--. 47 65

Gravel._________________..______________ 15 80

Gray sand.___-________.___._..____________-.-__- 6 86

Water sand (coarse)________________________________________ 1 87

Well 17

Clay__.....-______.__ __ ..__ _ ___ 118 118

Rock______________________________.______________________ 4 122

Well 20

Clay __ _ _ __ ... _ -- 4 4

Clay and gravel._____________-_--_-.___-__-_____--_----_-_ 45 49

Sand_______.___________..______________ 6 55

Claysand__________________________________ 40 95

Gravel..... _ ____ _ _ __________ 3 98

Well 21 

Clay and gravel______-________-_---.--_--.---.----------_---- 70 70

White sand________________. ______ _ _______ 6 76

Well 23» 

Clay--_--__--__________-_---_------_--_---_--_-__-------- 45 45

e

uicksand . _._ __. . _ ___ ..._______________-__ 150 195 

ravel......____-__---_-___---_..-----_--_---_-_------ 3 198

» Possibly till.

1 Log given by Mr. Shannon from memory.

O