Possible conduit-matrix water exchange signatures outlined at a karst spring.

Abstract

During a significant flood event, reversible water exchanges may occur between a karst conduit and its adjacent porous rock (frequently designated as "matrix"): while the flood pulse rises, some conduit-derived water is forced into the matrix; then, as the flood recedes, the same water flows back into the stream passage. The present note addresses such a karst setting in the Carpathian Mountains (Romania), where in addition, a usually stable flux of chloride originating in a natural saline inflow, was being mixed with a variable flow of karst freshwater. For that particular case, with the above-mentioned process of matrix storage/release from storage assumedly taking place downstream of the mixing site, two distinct chemical signatures could be noticed during a flood event: an initial depletion in the spring flow chloride flux, subsequently followed by a comparable chloride flux enrichment (the depletion and the enrichment being outlined with respect to the essentially stable chloride flux value that had been noticed to persist at the spring over a long period of flow rate recession). Concomitantly with such flood-induced fluctuations in thespring chloride flux, thespring discharge displayed, for long periods, abnormally slow variations: the latter likely indicated that the springsupply rate actual oscillations were buffered by the reversible water exchanges which took place between the karst conduit and its adjacent matrix. On the whole, these results show that conduit-matrix water exchanges could be interpreted by simple mass balance calculations that involved fluxes of a conservative tracer (the chloride ion in that particular case).