Groundwater levels and temperatures in well CH-10b near Hot Creek, Long Valley Caldera, eastern California (ver. 1.0)

Dates

Publication Date: 2018
Start Date: 2011

Citation

Clor, L., Hurwitz, S., Murphy, F., Howle, J., and Peek, S., 2018, Groundwater levels and temperatures in well CH-10b near Hot Creek, Long Valley Caldera, eastern California: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P96SHLT6.

Summary

NOTE: This data release has been superseded by a newer version: https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/5b6c8432e4b006a11f7bd01d Hot Creek Gorge contains the most obvious surface expression of the hydrothermal system in Long Valley Caldera, California, discharging 200-300 L/s of thermal water according to USGS measurements made since 1988. Formerly, Hot Creek was a popular public swimming area, but it was closed in 2006 due to unpredictable temperature fluctuations and sporadic geysering of thermal water within the creek (Evans et al., 2018). The USGS has monitored the thermal regime in the area since the mid-1980s, including a series of long-term studies 0.6 km away at well CH-10b. Temperature measurements in the ~100 m deep well, [...]

Summary

NOTE: This data release has been superseded by a newer version:
https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/5b6c8432e4b006a11f7bd01d

Hot Creek Gorge contains the most obvious surface expression of the hydrothermal system in Long Valley Caldera, California, discharging 200-300 L/s of thermal water according to USGS measurements made since 1988. Formerly, Hot Creek was a popular public swimming area, but it was closed in 2006 due to unpredictable temperature fluctuations and sporadic geysering of thermal water within the creek (Evans et al., 2018). The USGS has monitored the thermal regime in the area since the mid-1980s, including a series of long-term studies 0.6 km away at well CH-10b. Temperature measurements in the ~100 m deep well, which have been performed on an intermittent basis since it was drilled in 1983, reveal a complex temperature profile (see Farrar et al., 2010). Temperatures increase with depth to a maximum at about 43 meters (140 ft) below the ground surface, and then decrease steadily to the bottom of the well. The depth of the temperature maximum in the well (~43 m) corresponds to an elevation of ~2,120 m, roughly equivalent to the elevation of Hot Creek, and appears to sample the same hydrothermal flow system that supplies thermal features at the surface in the gorge. Starting in the early 1990s, the maximum temperature in CH-10b rose from 93.4°C to its peak in 2007 at 101.0°C. A cooling trend was observed beginning in 2009 and continues to present (99.3°C in June 2015). As the input into CH-10b is at the elevation of the creek, it exhibits the potential for response to thermal events at Hot Creek, and could provide a useful tool for monitoring future hazards. In January 2011, thirteen platinum resistance thermometers (PRTs) sealed against moisture and corrosion were installed in CH-10b at varying depths from 90 ft to 260 ft and connected to a datalogger programmed to record the temperatures every five seconds (initially) or ten seconds (after November 2015). The intent was to monitor the groundwater temperature profile in the vicinity of the Hot Creek site. In October 2011, a bubbler system that consists of a nitrogen tank, a pressure regulator, and tubing (further described in Howle and Farrar, 1996) was added to measure water level at CH-10b, and in September 2012 a barometer was added to measure barometric pressure. Due to the extreme environmental conditions, some PRTs eventually began to fail, leading to spurious readings that were later removed from the dataset (detailed in the Data Quality section). On November 9, 2016, most PRTs were removed from the well, leaving only those at 140-ft (PRT6) and 160-ft (PRT8) in order to focus monitoring efforts on the measurements around the maximum point of the temperature-depth profile. Evans, W.C., Hurwitz, S., Bergfeld, D., and Howle, J.F., 2018, Hot water in the Long Valley Caldera—The benefits and hazards of this large natural resource: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2018–3009, 4 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/fs20183009. Farrar, C., DeAngelo, J., Clor, L., Murphy, F., Williams, C., Grubb, F., and Hurwitz, S., 2010, Temperature data from wells in Long Valley Caldera, California (ver. 3.0, November 2016): U.S. Geological Survey Data Series 523, https://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/523/. Howle, J.F. and Farrar, C.D., 1996, Hydrologic data for Long Valley Caldera, Mono County, California, 1987-93: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 96-382, https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr96382.

Contacts

Point of Contact :: Shaul Hurwitz, ALASKA REGION
Originator :: Laura Clor, Shaul Hurwitz, Fred Murphy, James Howle, Sara Peek
Metadata Contact :: Laura Clor, ALASKA REGION
Publisher :: U.S. Geological Survey
Distributor :: GS ScienceBase, U.S. Geological Survey - ScienceBase

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Groundwater levels and temperatures in well CH-10b near Hot Creek, Long Valley Caldera, eastern California (ver 1.0).xml Original FGDC Metadata	View	31.32 KB	application/fgdc+xml
gw_levels_and_temps_v1_0_2018_04.zip		382.55 MB	application/zip

Related External Resources

Type: Online Link

Web Link	https://doi.org/10.5066/P96SHLT6

Purpose

The purpose of this Data Release is to compile previously unpublished hydrologic data collected by the USGS from well CH-10b in the Hot Creek region of Long Valley Caldera, California, from 2011 to present (2018 at the time of this writing). When combined with other previously published hydrologic, geochemical, and environmental data available elsewhere (e.g., streamflow in Hot Creek, precipitation, etc., available through links listed as Cross Reference sources), the data presented here could be used to assess the state of the Hot Creek hydrothermal system. The dataset consists of many separate .csv files that have a similar format. The data is arranged in monthly bins, such that each file represents one month of data. The first four rows of each file contain header information. The data begins on row 5. Water level data is not available prior to October 2011, nor barometric pressure data prior to September 2012, as the sensors had not yet been installed. For a six-month period in 2015-2016, barometric pressure data was recorded in a single separate file at 10-minute intervals. During this time period, barometric pressure data is absent from the temperature and water level files. Numerous gaps exist in the dataset, from days to months in duration, due to maintenance, instrumental failures, or inaccessibility of the site during winter months.

Groundwater levels and temperatures in well CH-10b near Hot Creek, Long Valley Caldera, eastern California (ver. 1.0)

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