Description
Rainfall in southern Missouri seeps into the water table and flows through a vast system of passages and cavities. These cavities form a main channel and the groundwater reaches the surface at the town of Mammoth Spring, Arkansas. The emerging water forms a 10 acre (40,000 m²) spring pool that drains over a high stone dam. The spring generates a flow of 10 m³/s (344 cubic feet per second). The water emerges at a constant 14 °C (58 °F). The spring itself cannot be viewed at the Mammoth Spring site because its mouth is more than 21 m (70 ft) below the surface of the large spring pool.
Nine miles northwest of Mammoth Spring visitors can see a portion of the underground river that feeds the spring at a collapsed cave at a Missouri State Park called Grand Gulf State Park. The remains of a portion of the cave are now a 40 m (130 ft) deep chasm with a natural bridge over it. Dye tests have proven that the water flowing through the 40 m (130 ft) chasm at Grand Gulf exits through the existing cave and emerges at Mammoth Spring.
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