(4) The spring water is rolling and the hot spring is gushing

1. Overview of hot springs

The faults on both sides of the rift valley have opened up channels for groundwater to rise, so there are a series of springs with large amounts of water along the edge of the rift valley, supplying water to the basin. Farmland irrigation promotes the development of agricultural economy. The famous ones include Shentou Spring (Shuozhou) in Datong Basin, Jinci Nanlao Spring in Taiyuan, Hongshan Spring in Jiexiu, Guangshengsi Spring in Hongdong, and Longzici Spring in Linfen. These springs not only have a large amount of water, but each spring is The water flow exceeds one cubic meter per second, and there are beautiful legends, ancient buildings with gardens and temples, making it a tourist hotspot.

(1) Jinci Spring

Jinci Nanlao Spring is located in Jinci, a garden-style classical building complex. Jin Temple was built to commemorate Tang Shuyu, the founding father of the Jin Dynasty and a prince of the Western Zhou Dynasty. It was expanded by successive dynasties.

In the Spring and Autumn Period, Jin Zhibo first opened canals to divert water to irrigate farmland. In the Song Dynasty, he built the Notre Dame Hall and rebuilt the fish pond and flying beams in front of the hall. Therefore, the Zhou cypress in the temple, the maids in the palace and the cross-shaped bridge became the three unique features of Jin Temple. The spring water in Jinci is a pressure-bearing spring that rises through the faults in the mountain front. It gushes out of the ground in the form of spring groups. Today, due to artificial construction improvements, there are only two springs.

In front of the statue of the Jellyfish Queen in the Water Temple on the west side of the Holy Mother Hall, through the mouth of the octagonal well outside the hall, you can see the rolling spring water in the well, called Nanlao Spring, which is the main spring of Jinci Temple. After it gushes out from the ground, it passes through the underground sand layer and flows down from the marble dragon mouth at the edge of the stone boat more than ten meters in front of the well, and is taken over by the marble dervish. There is a Jiuqu Bridge in front of the stone boat. Under the bridge, there are more fine springs flowing up in the gravel around it. Finally, through the iron pillar water diversion port, water is diverted out of the temple through three channels in the north and seven in the south to irrigate 100,000 acres of rice fields. This field It is rich in high-quality rice, which is Jinci rice that was paid tribute to the imperial court. The second spring gushes out from the well in the octagonal pavilion on the north side of the Notre Dame Temple. In the 1950s and 1960s, spring water could still be seen rising in this well, but it has dried up since the 1980s.

The groundwater of Jinci Spring comes from the West Mountain of Taiyuan. It is gathered by the karst water of Ordovician limestone and rises up in the Bianshan fault. The water inflow is 1.1 to 1.7 cubic meters per second. Its upstream catchment area is hundreds of square kilometers.

At the bottom of the Carboniferous strata where coal is produced, there is a layer of quartz sandstone 2 to 5 meters thick, hence the name Jinci. Jinci Sandstone is the identification mark that separates the upper and lower parts of the Carboniferous strata and is distributed throughout the province. This sandstone was originally exposed from Laojun Cave in the northwest corner of Jinci Temple to Gongshuzi Temple at the back of Notre Dame Hall.

In the canal of Jinci Temple, there is constant spring water all year round, which is clear and transparent. Water plants as long as kelp are swaying in the water. When Liu Shaoqi came to Jin Temple, he asked his attendants whether the water plants could be eaten. After testing, the chef prepared it. The finished dishes were served to Liu Shaoqi. I wonder if this dish has been popularized.

(2) Hongdong Guangsheng Temple Spring

Also known as Huo Spring, the spring is located at the foot of Guangsheng Temple Mountain. There is a water temple built in it. The stone fence in front of the temple surrounds a square pool with a wide width. 50 meters by 80 meters, the main spring gushes out from the bottom of the southeast corner of the pool. The water head is 10 to 20 centimeters above the water surface. There are dozens of small springs rising up in the pool, and some of them bubble. There are newly built marble sculptures of hundreds of dragons in the east of the pool, and a water temple in the north of the pool. The water in the pool is led from the west water canal, forming a flood waterfall 2 to 3 meters wide and 4 to 5 meters high. Iron pillars are used to divide the water outlet, and the water is divided according to the proportion of north, south, and seven.

This pool of water reflects the glazed Feihong Pagoda on the top of the east cliff of the temple, forming a stunning view. The Colorful Feihong Tower is the landmark of Huoquan. It stands on the top of a mountain more than 100 meters higher than the water surface of the spring, shining brightly in the sun. This pagoda is 47 meters high, with octagonal and thirteen floors. According to legend, it is the relic pagoda of the Buddha Sakyamuni.

The water inflow from this spring is 3.64 to 4.94 meters per second, irrigating 400,000 acres of farmland in Hongdong and Zhaocheng. Water overflowed from the Ordovician limestone in Dongshan and rose along the faults at the edge of the basin.

(3) Jiexiu Hongshan Spring

It is located in the Nanshan Valley of Hongshan Town, Jiexiu. The spring water is also built into a square pool to store water and flow out. There is a source spring temple in the south of the pool, and there is an arch bridge stone with the pool. steps connected. The flow rate of Hongshan Spring is 1.1 to 1.6 cubic meters per second, and it is also located in Ordovician limestone. The biggest feature of this spring is not that it rises from the fault at the junction of plains and mountains and overflows the surface. It gushes directly from under the Carboniferous aquifer on top of the Ordovician limestone, and then flows to the plains outside the mountains. Secondly, the water is rich in calcium carbonate, so a huge alluvial fan composed of travertine that is more than ten meters above the plain and several hundred meters wide is accumulated at the mouth of the mountain. Local people mine this "spring flower" and sell it as water-absorbing stone for bonsai.

(4) Shuozhou Shentou Spring

Located on the north bank of the Sanggan River, it consists of a series of single springs arranged linearly near the fault on the north side of the rift basin. There are more than a hundred springs on the west bank of Yuangao River, a secondary tributary, among which the larger ones are called Jinlongchi Spring, Huangdao Spring, Shuiweisi Spring, Wuhua Spring, Yunlong Spring, Sanquanliuquan, Lianhuachi Spring, etc. The combined flow rate of the springs reaches 8.1 cubic meters per second. Among them, the largest Jinlong Pond is divided into two ponds, called the East Sea and the West Sea. Because the surrounding area of ??the pond has been landscaped and a water temple has been built, it is called the "West Lake beyond the Great Wall" and has become a tourist attraction.

The legend of this spring is Tianchi, southwest of Ningwu on the south bank of the Tongsang River. Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty once threw sheep tied with gold beads into Tianchi and later found them in Shentou Spring, which proved that the spring water originated from Tianchi. But geological common sense tells us that this legend is purely a rumor. The water in Tianchi is surrounded by nearly horizontal sand and shale layers. The water-proof layer (shale) is so dense and there are no breaks nearby, so the water in the pool must not "leak" away.

The Sanggan River is tens of kilometers wide from north to south, and it is impossible for groundwater to pass through the south bank fault and replenish it to the north bank. The water of Shentou Spring is mainly supplied by karst groundwater in the limestone formation on the south bank. When it encounters faults at the edge of the rift valley, it rises in a band to form the Shentou Spring Group.

(5) Exploration of the Middle Spring of Yuncheng Salt Lake

The Salt Lake is a water storage depression, and there cannot be a river in the pool. Legend has it that there is a Black River in the Middle East Pool, which is called the mother of salt production and is the system of salt lakes. The raw material of salt - the main source of brine. In fact, it is the movement of saline groundwater from north to south in the Sushui River Basin. When it encounters a large fracture on the edge of the rift valley on the south bank of the salt lake, salt water rolls upward from the fracture. Since the terrain of the salt lake is high in the east and low in the west, the lake is rich in The salty groundwater is black due to its high mud content, so this black spring water flows westward like a river, and is continuously and selectively pumped by salt workers in the center of the pool, making it look like a river. flows to the west.

During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, there was a heavy flood. The flood suddenly rushed into the pool with sand and gravel. The outlet of the salt spring was blocked, causing a sharp decrease in salt production. The original annual salt production was 70,000 tons, but after the flood, the salt production dropped to 15,000 tons. For this reason, people had to be mobilized to dig out the sediment that buried the Heihe River, and tried to dig out the Heihe River again, but with little success. People use the method of digging wells to draw high-concentration salt water down into the buried sand. At this time, in the eastern part of the Heihe River, near the original outflow of the Heihe River, the ground sank and the soil collapsed. Several funnels, locally called Hutuo, were buried under the Heihe River. Therefore, the same effect as the Heihe River can be achieved by taking salt water here. In fact, these funnels are new springs that emerged from the fault after the original springs were buried. The spring originally emerged in the form of a large "river", but later turned into a number of small funnel-shaped springs. Groundwater will still emerge, it will just change in a different form.

The black spring contains black mud, and most of the black mud sinks to the bottom of the lake. At the turn of the century, Yuncheng Nanfeng Group learned from Israel’s experience in developing the Dead Sea and began to carry out mud therapy and salt water bathing activities. Yuncheng black mud contains many trace elements that are beneficial to the body, such as bromine, zinc, strontium, lithium, etc. A large number of cosmetics have been developed using these elements for skin care and beauty. Now these two emerging industries have flourished and become another means of profit for Nanfeng Group.

Legend has it that because Chi You was killed in the Yanchi, his blood flowed in, causing the lake to turn red. The lake water turning red is an objective natural phenomenon. Whenever the weather is hot, the lake water will indeed turn red. The light red water seen from a distance is very different from the cyan lake water. In the past, I didn't know the reason but used legends and myths to explain it. At the beginning of this century, after analysis and identification, it was discovered that the disease was caused by the microscopic single-cell plant Salina salina. This kind of red algae, which is smaller than 0.1 to 0.01 millimeters, reproduces rapidly when the temperature turns high, causing the lake water to turn red, just like the "red tide" commonly seen in seawater in the East my country Sea. Red tide is a dramatic increase in organic matter-rich components in seawater, causing salt algae to multiply due to its rich nutrients. Salt lakes are already rich in nutrients. As the weather gets hotter, algae split faster, causing the density of algae to increase dramatically and the lake water to turn red. Both are caused by Salina algae.

2. Develop hot springs

The thickness of the crust in the rift valley area becomes thinner and the underground heat flow value increases, so hot springs are exposed. There are 17 hot springs in Shanxi province, almost all of which are in the rift valley zone. The water temperature is as low as 23.5°C and as high as 63°C. Most of these hot springs have been developed. Some are used as hot spring sanatoriums, hot spring baths, and some are used as swimming pools. A few have been introduced into greenhouses to grow vegetables and flowers, benefiting one area. Comparing the five major basins, the southern basin has more hot springs while the northern basin has fewer hot springs.

List of hot springs in Shanxi

The temperature of hot springs is based on 20℃. Only those with a temperature higher than this can be called hot springs. Therefore, the lower limit of hot spring temperature is relatively low. The setting of the lower limit of 20°C is related to the constant temperature zone in the upper part of the earth's crust. More than 100 meters underground in Shanxi, the constant temperature is 12°C. Further down, you enter the geothermal temperature increasing zone. For every 100 meters of descent, the geothermal heat in Shanxi increases by 2.3°C to 2.5°C. If it exceeds this value, it is considered to have entered the geothermal abnormal zone, and hot spring water can also be pumped out.

Some people believe that there may be the latest magma activity underground in Shanxi hot springs, causing geothermal anomalies. In fact, the last period of magma intrusion in Shanxi occurred 10,000 years ago. At the same time as the Datong volcano erupted, a basalt vein intruded. Since then, no magma activity has been seen. Therefore, the emergence of hot springs in Shanxi is related to the underground heat flow in Shanxi. It has been found that the Shanxi rift zone is an area of ??abnormal geothermal activity. The fractures on the edge of the rift zone are the channels for the heat flow to rise. The Taihang Fault and Lishi Fault Zone are also geothermal anomaly areas.

In addition to what is listed in the above table, there is also a hot spring in the muddy beach of Hutuo River in the north of Dingxiang, with a temperature of around 30℃. The water temperature there is relatively high, but not scalding. Warm water can be seen gushing out from many small holes in the mire. If the cooling effect of the river water under the river beach is excluded, the temperature at the spring mouth should be above 40℃.

In addition, below Lingqiu Shentang Fort, 5 kilometers beyond the provincial border, next to Wuwangkou Village in Fuping County, on the river beach, there are two brick doorless cave dwellings, separated by a wall, each in the middle. There is a hot spring with a water temperature between 50°C and 70°C. You need to use cold water from the surface river next to the pool to dilute it before you can take a bath. The reason why it is divided into two rooms is to separate the pools for men and women, and there is no door at the entrance of the kiln. It is fully believed that men and women bathing are gentlemen, and there will be no scandal of peeping into the bath. This hot spring is related to the fault on the northeast bank of the Hutuo River that passes through Fuping City.