GROUNDWATER DISCHARGE: A COMMON GENERATOR OF DIVERSE GEOLOGIC AND MORPHOLOGIC PHENOMENA

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Abstract
Four natural conditions co-exist inherently with the hydraulic discharge of groundwater: positive gradient of the fluid potential, low relative topographic position, allochthonous water quality, and allochthonous water temperature. In turn, these conditions are consistently associated with springs, seepages, quicksand, soap holes, geysers, frost mounds, pingos, groundwater lakes and marshes, and certain near-surface and surface accumulations of salts, landslides, slumps, soil creep and gullying, which is considered as an indication that these features have one common generator: groundwater discharge. The above geomorphic and geologic phenomena are, therefore, interpreted as environmentally modified expressions of the hydraulic discharge of groundwater through topographically controlled gravity flow systems.