Giant Springs is a large first magnitude spring located near Great Falls, Montana and is the central feature of Giant Springs State Park. Its water has a constant temperature of and originates from snowmelt in the Little Belt Mountains, away. According to chlorofluorocarbon dating, the water takes about 3,000 years to travel underground before returning to the surface at the springs. Giant Springs is formed by an opening in a part of the Madison aquifer, a vast

aquifer An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials ( gravel, sand, or silt). Groundwater from aquifers can be extracted using a water well. Aquifers vary greatly in their characteris ...

underlying 5 U.S. States and 3 Canadian Provinces. The conduit between the mountains and the spring is the geological stratum found in parts of the northwest United States called the

Madison Limestone The Madison Limestone is a thick sequence of mostly carbonate rocks of Mississippian age in the Rocky Mountain and Great Plains areas of the western United States. The rocks serve as an important aquifer as well as an oil reservoir in places. T ...

. Although some of the underground water from the Little Belt Mountains escapes to form Giant Springs, some stays underground and continues flowing, joining sources from

losing stream A losing stream, disappearing stream, influent stream or sinking river is a stream or river that loses water as it flows downstream. The water infiltrates into the ground recharging the local groundwater, because the water table is below the bo ...

s in the

Black Hills The Black Hills ( lkt, Ȟe Sápa; chy, Moʼȯhta-voʼhonáaeva; hid, awaxaawi shiibisha) is an isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, United States. Black ...

Big Horn Mountains The Bighorn Mountains ( cro, Basawaxaawúua, lit=our mountains or cro, Iisaxpúatahchee Isawaxaawúua, label=none, lit=bighorn sheep's mountains) are a mountain range in northern Wyoming and southern Montana in the United States, forming a nort ...

and other areas. The aquifer eventually surfaces in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Giant Springs has an average discharge of of water per second or 150 million gallons per day. Giant Springs Trout 16

The spring outlet is located in Giant Springs State Park, just downstream and northeast of Great Falls, Montana on the east bank of the Missouri River. Giant Springs was first described by Lewis and Clark during their exploration of the

Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana Purchase (french: Vente de la Louisiane, translation=Sale of Louisiana) was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or app ...

in 1805. Before that, the Blackfeet people utilized the springs as an easy-to-access water source in the winter. The springs were mostly ignored by settlers until 1884 when the town of Great Falls was established and the springs became the place for Sunday recreational activities. In the mid-1970s the park was established as a Montana State Park. Today, some of the spring water is bottled annually for human consumption and some of the discharge is used for a

trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', '' Salmo'' and '' Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salm ...

hatchery A hatchery is a facility where eggs are hatched under artificial conditions, especially those of fish, poultry or even turtles. It may be used for ex-situ conservation purposes, i.e. to breed rare or endangered species under controlled cond ...

. The hatchery is a Montana state trout hatchery named Giant Springs Trout Hatchery and raises mostly Rainbow Trout. The spring serves as the headwaters of the -long

Roe River The Roe River runs from Giant Springs to the Missouri River near Great Falls, Montana, United States. The Roe River is only long at its longest constant point, and had been named as the World's Shortest River by the '' Guinness Book of World ...

, once listed as the shortest river in the world according to Guinness Book of World Records. The river flows into the Missouri River which is near the spring and borders its state park. Giant Springs07

References

External links

State of Montana: Official Giant Springs State Park websiteYoutube: Giant Springs 1

Youtube: Giant Springs 2

Youtube: Giant Springs 3
{{Protected Areas of Montana Springs of Montana State parks of Montana Great Falls, Montana Landforms of Cascade County, Montana Protected areas of Cascade County, Montana Tourist attractions in Great Falls, Montana

See also

References

External links