the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 22 Apr 2024
Improvement of the thermal spring protection area through numerical modelling and interdisciplinary studies
Abstract. The integration of different sources of geological and hydrogeological information and the application of interdisciplinary methods have informed the origin of the thermal springs of Alhama de Aragón and Jaraba, as well as others associated semi thermal springs (1,200 l/s of combined flow, 711 l/s at over 30 °C).
This issue is key to being able to design any sustainable conservation strategy in terms of quantity and quality of resources within the recharge area of the most important thermal springs in Spain.
The Upper Cretaceous limestones and dolomites constitute the main aquifer of the Alhama and Jaraba thermal system. It extends continuously under the slightly permeable Tertiary of the Almazán Basin in the form of a NW-SE "synclinorium". Its bottom has extensive depths of more than 3,000 and 4,000 m in the NE sector, which constitute the focus of heat considering normal geothermal gradients.
From the results of the modelling of the flow of this thermal system, it can be concluded that the origin of these springs comes mainly from the autogenous recharge that occurs in the Cretaceous calcareous outcrops that border the Almazán Basin to the north, both in the Ebro Basin (Jalón Valley) and in the more distant Duero Basin. The underground flow follows a NW-SE direction flowing across the Duero-Ebro divide, favored by the topographic difference in elevation between the two basins. The modelled regional flow is coherent with the progressive increase in temperature, water age, mineralization, and flow of the springs through which the system discharges.
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Interactive discussion
Status: closed
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RC1: 'Comment on hess-2024-82', Jorge Yepes, 16 May 2024
I read this article with pleasure. Regarding its content, 10 observations caught my attention.
Contents
1.- The reviewed article (*1) constitutes an original and unpublished investigation.
2.- The work focuses on the question of the hydrogeological functioning of a thermal aquifer system that is almost in a natural regime.
3.- The Alhama de Aragón aquifer is probably the most important in the Iberian Peninsula, at least for its hydraulic resources.
4.- The Alhama spring is one of the largest thermal springs in Europe and supports an important spa industry.
5.- On the other hand, the authors have compiled all the existing information.
6.- In addition, numerous previous studies on different topics are used (deep geophysics, detailed geology, etc.).
7.- The work has been complemented with field work that has lasted several years (inventory of water points, monitoring of isotopic hydrogeochemistry, etc.).
8.- All the information has been integrated and used to design the hydrogeological conceptual model.
9.- The flow model has been simulated with a numerical model.
10.- And finally, the results of the numerical model have confirmed the conceptual model and the origin of the springs.
(*1) “The origin of Alhama de Aragón and Jaraba thermal springs. Numerical modeling of the regional flow of the geothermal systems, Almazan Basin, Iberian range, Spain”
Personal assessment.In my opinion, this is a work that is of interest to the international hydrogeological community.
11.- Perhaps the greatest interest of the work is the methodology.
The use of quality data and robust tools has made it possible to locate the recharge area.12.- This work lays the foundations for the protection of important springs.
13.- Furthermore, the study is timely. The aquifer is not exploited. It is possible to apply sustainable management.
RecommendationsI recommend publishing it with some minor modifications. Some bugs need to be fixed.
14.- In the legend of figure 1, put “Pyrenees” instead of Pyrenees.
15.- The toponymy mentioned in the text must be included in the figures. It will make the text easier to understand.
* Ibdes (line 107)
* Sierra del Solorio (line 120, 270, Figure 3)
* El Raido (line 211)
* Calmarza (lines 684, 704 and 710). I suggest including the toponym in figure 3, box D.16.- Line 307, put the number 3 as super index (hm^3)
17.- Lines 358 and 360. Reference is made to (T). What does (T) mean? It's confusing.
18.- Table 4. You must include proper nouns in capital letters.
19.- Hocino Springs does not have an H.
20.- The word 'roof' is frequently used. It seems to me that the appropriate term would be 'overhead'. Confirm, please.
21.- Figure 4-C. Indicate in the figure caption that it is a draft that shows the structural analysis carried out, using the dimensioning technique.
SuggestionsThe work would benefit if the information were briefly expanded in some aspects:
22.- The absence of Jurassic is a key observation to understand the origin of thermal springs. It would be appropriate to add some data to support this fact.
23.- Could more details be given about the origin of the karstification associated with the Tertiary - Quaternary?
24.- Could you explain how the upward erosion of the Jalón River has contributed to the capture of the thermal aquifer and its underground transfer to the Ebro Basin?
25.- Figures 15 and 16. Why are two springs shown in Deza? It is necessary to clarify this duplicity.
26.- Figures 17 and 18. It is advisable to put different symbols for each spring and include them in the legend. The figures are confusing.
27.- Line 814. The text 'fig16' is repeated.
28.- Almost all figures include text with a very small font size. It is difficult to read.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2024-82-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Joaquín Sanz De Ojeda, 22 May 2024
Dear reviewer,
First of all we want to thank you for the time you have dedicated to reviewing our manuscript, as well as for all the constructive comments made. Attached I include a PDF with your comments answered by us one by one in red.
As you will see, we have taken into account all your comments since we found them very interesting. It is greatly appreciated.
We have updated the manuscript where we have taken into account all the comments of all the reviewers. Since we cannot attach the revised manuscript, we respond below in as much detail as possible to all the comments we have applied.
Thank you very much again for your review.
Best Regards
Authors and Co-Authors
-
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Joaquín Sanz De Ojeda, 22 May 2024
-
RC2: 'Comment on hess-2024-82', Anonymous Referee #2, 17 May 2024
I appreciate the timing and efforts of the authors in the preparation of this manuscript. There is so much geological and hydrogeological information provided in the paper, and in my opinion, all of them are valuable pieces of information. Overall, the manuscript needs significant improvements, particularly in the writing format. The submitted paper is prepared like a thesis, the number of sub-sections is too much, which makes the paper unreadable. Some of these sub-sections should be merged appropriately. The authors must re-organize the whole paper according to the manuscript format.
Secondly, this paper is mainly focused on the improvement of the thermal spring protection area through numerical modeling and interdisciplinary studies, however, when I was reading the manuscript, I felt like reading a regional study, pointing out the importance of a local geothermal system. The paper needs to address what are the new methods to better reveal the protection areas by comparing the existing methodology and approaches. What are interdisciplinary studies currently available (e.g. hydrochemistry and environmental isotopes), or newly used? Are there similar applications in the literature? The novelty of the study (if available) should be emphasized. In my opinion, the authors focused on the modeling phase too much, which shaded other sections.
Considering these major comments and minor recommendations (added in the pdf file), I recommend a major revision.
Kind regards,
The reviewer.
Major comments
The introduction must be tidied up. State of the art is not shared, and the aim of the study is not clear. The majority of the given information in the introduction is related to the site description and should be moved to the Study Area section.
The study area section is too long to read and understand. There is too much (unnecessary) information and details are shared. There are lots of sub-sections, and I recommend merging them into the “Geology” and “Hydrogeology” sub-sections.
For instance:
“4.3 Simulation of groundwater flow in the thermal aquifer” is enough for a header. Do not divide these sections into sub-pieces (4.3.1/ 4.3.2/ 4.3.3…) Give all the necessary information by summarising. This is what I mean:
4.3.4 Hydrogeological parameters are given in separate sub-sections (4.3.4.1. or 4.3.4.2….) These details do not make the paper better, please decrease the resolution of the details in the paper. Please merge these sub-sections as much as possible.
The results and discussion section includes too much information which should be given in “Model Setup”.
Figure 3 is a very well-prepared hydrogeological map, however, Figure 1 and Figure 2 should be merged into 1 figure. Figure 4 (in my opinion) is not necessary and could be removed from the manuscript.
The sub-section “4.3 Simulation of groundwater flow in the thermal aquifer” should be given in the “3.2 Modelling of hydrothermal system flow” sub-section. Please describe the model before giving the results.
You can find my minor details as comment boxes in the pdf document.
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Joaquín Sanz De Ojeda, 22 May 2024
Dear reviewer,
First of all, we would like to thank you for the time you have spent reviewing our manuscript. We strongly appreciate the constructive comments made, as we consider them to be very interesting.
Attached I include a PDF with your comments answered by us one by one in red.
As you can see, we have taken all your comments into account.
We have been working these days to update the manuscript, where we have taken into account all the comments from all the reviewers. Since we are unable to attach the revised manuscript, we respond below in as much detail as possible to all of the comments we have applied.
Thank you very much again for your review.
Author and Co-Authors
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Joaquín Sanz De Ojeda, 22 May 2024
-
RC3: 'Comment on hess-2024-82', Anonymous Referee #3, 28 May 2024
Ojeda et al. conducted interdisciplinary studies in Alhama de Aragón and Jaraba in Spain including the analysis of geologic and hydrogeologic conditions, the hydrochemical data, and groundwater modeling. Authors aimed to unravel the source of springs in the study area which would be helpful to the sustainable conservation strategy. Authors do use a lot of different kinds of data and build a likely sounding flow model. I think the results are important to understand the groundwater movement in the study area and this study is a good contribution. However, I don’t think the current manuscript is well prepared for publication in HESS. The reasons are as follows:
- The biggest problem is that the author didn’t well leverage the model they built. If the objective is to identify the source of the springs, after you built the well calibrated flow model and did particle tracking using MODPATH based on your flow field, why not analyze the flow paths of the particle tracking results. Then you can easily get what you want and then the modeling work is essentially meaningful.
- It looks like the authors’ idea is that they propose a kind of conceptual model based on geologic and hydrogeologic conditions. Then they build a flow model using modflow. If the calibrated model has a good performance on different hydrologic variables by comparing with observations, then their proposed conceptual model sounds. I really cannot agree such an idea as you didn’t correctly use the model and the modeling work lost its intrinsic significance.
- If the author can utilize the model well, the last part of hydrochemisty is not necessary. You can merge them into your analyzation of your particle tracking results and use these data to validate your particle tracking results. In Lines 859 and 861, it is sad to see ‘is assumed’ as you still cannot identity the flow paths after si many modeling efforts.
- So, the ‘interdisciplinary studies’ are like a documentation of all your work which do not connect each other tightly. The main line is not clear and a lot of descriptive sections just like filed work documentations.
- Also, there are too many names which are not well introduced in the manuscript, and it is really messy and hard to follow the many descriptive words. For example, the most important ‘Alhama de Aragón and Jaraba’ even did not appear in your Figure 1.
- There are also a lot of small errors everywhere in the manuscript and make it even harder to follow. For example, I don’t think the numbers in the caption of Figure 5 are right.
Line 781: I don’t think Figure 14 is the right figure you want to direct the audience to. Line 814: what is Fig. 16 and Fig. 16.
Fig. 18: I don’t think the legend is right. The red and blue points are neither observed values nor the simulated values.
Line 827: what does “in order to carry out this simulation” mean? Does ‘this simulation’ mean your modflow model? The modflow model does not necessarily depend on your particle tracking.
Line 946: you have the first half of the parenthesis, so where the second half? There are a lot of such small errors.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2024-82-RC3 -
AC3: 'Reply on RC3', Joaquín Sanz De Ojeda, 30 May 2024
Dear reviewer,
First of all, we want to thank you for the time you have dedicated to reviewing our manuscript, as well as for all the constructive comments made.
As we have done with the other reviewers, I am attaching a PDF with your comments answered by us one by one in red.
As you will see, we have taken all your comments into account since we found them very interesting. We had already taken many of them into account thanks to the previous review by the other reviewers. You will also see that we have responded quickly to some ot the other comments since we had made them initially but they had not been included in the manuscript for reasons of not extending it too much. Your dedication and time is greatly appreciated.
Thank you so muchAuthor and Co-Authors
Interactive discussion
Status: closed
-
RC1: 'Comment on hess-2024-82', Jorge Yepes, 16 May 2024
I read this article with pleasure. Regarding its content, 10 observations caught my attention.
Contents
1.- The reviewed article (*1) constitutes an original and unpublished investigation.
2.- The work focuses on the question of the hydrogeological functioning of a thermal aquifer system that is almost in a natural regime.
3.- The Alhama de Aragón aquifer is probably the most important in the Iberian Peninsula, at least for its hydraulic resources.
4.- The Alhama spring is one of the largest thermal springs in Europe and supports an important spa industry.
5.- On the other hand, the authors have compiled all the existing information.
6.- In addition, numerous previous studies on different topics are used (deep geophysics, detailed geology, etc.).
7.- The work has been complemented with field work that has lasted several years (inventory of water points, monitoring of isotopic hydrogeochemistry, etc.).
8.- All the information has been integrated and used to design the hydrogeological conceptual model.
9.- The flow model has been simulated with a numerical model.
10.- And finally, the results of the numerical model have confirmed the conceptual model and the origin of the springs.
(*1) “The origin of Alhama de Aragón and Jaraba thermal springs. Numerical modeling of the regional flow of the geothermal systems, Almazan Basin, Iberian range, Spain”
Personal assessment.In my opinion, this is a work that is of interest to the international hydrogeological community.
11.- Perhaps the greatest interest of the work is the methodology.
The use of quality data and robust tools has made it possible to locate the recharge area.12.- This work lays the foundations for the protection of important springs.
13.- Furthermore, the study is timely. The aquifer is not exploited. It is possible to apply sustainable management.
RecommendationsI recommend publishing it with some minor modifications. Some bugs need to be fixed.
14.- In the legend of figure 1, put “Pyrenees” instead of Pyrenees.
15.- The toponymy mentioned in the text must be included in the figures. It will make the text easier to understand.
* Ibdes (line 107)
* Sierra del Solorio (line 120, 270, Figure 3)
* El Raido (line 211)
* Calmarza (lines 684, 704 and 710). I suggest including the toponym in figure 3, box D.16.- Line 307, put the number 3 as super index (hm^3)
17.- Lines 358 and 360. Reference is made to (T). What does (T) mean? It's confusing.
18.- Table 4. You must include proper nouns in capital letters.
19.- Hocino Springs does not have an H.
20.- The word 'roof' is frequently used. It seems to me that the appropriate term would be 'overhead'. Confirm, please.
21.- Figure 4-C. Indicate in the figure caption that it is a draft that shows the structural analysis carried out, using the dimensioning technique.
SuggestionsThe work would benefit if the information were briefly expanded in some aspects:
22.- The absence of Jurassic is a key observation to understand the origin of thermal springs. It would be appropriate to add some data to support this fact.
23.- Could more details be given about the origin of the karstification associated with the Tertiary - Quaternary?
24.- Could you explain how the upward erosion of the Jalón River has contributed to the capture of the thermal aquifer and its underground transfer to the Ebro Basin?
25.- Figures 15 and 16. Why are two springs shown in Deza? It is necessary to clarify this duplicity.
26.- Figures 17 and 18. It is advisable to put different symbols for each spring and include them in the legend. The figures are confusing.
27.- Line 814. The text 'fig16' is repeated.
28.- Almost all figures include text with a very small font size. It is difficult to read.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2024-82-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Joaquín Sanz De Ojeda, 22 May 2024
Dear reviewer,
First of all we want to thank you for the time you have dedicated to reviewing our manuscript, as well as for all the constructive comments made. Attached I include a PDF with your comments answered by us one by one in red.
As you will see, we have taken into account all your comments since we found them very interesting. It is greatly appreciated.
We have updated the manuscript where we have taken into account all the comments of all the reviewers. Since we cannot attach the revised manuscript, we respond below in as much detail as possible to all the comments we have applied.
Thank you very much again for your review.
Best Regards
Authors and Co-Authors
-
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Joaquín Sanz De Ojeda, 22 May 2024
-
RC2: 'Comment on hess-2024-82', Anonymous Referee #2, 17 May 2024
I appreciate the timing and efforts of the authors in the preparation of this manuscript. There is so much geological and hydrogeological information provided in the paper, and in my opinion, all of them are valuable pieces of information. Overall, the manuscript needs significant improvements, particularly in the writing format. The submitted paper is prepared like a thesis, the number of sub-sections is too much, which makes the paper unreadable. Some of these sub-sections should be merged appropriately. The authors must re-organize the whole paper according to the manuscript format.
Secondly, this paper is mainly focused on the improvement of the thermal spring protection area through numerical modeling and interdisciplinary studies, however, when I was reading the manuscript, I felt like reading a regional study, pointing out the importance of a local geothermal system. The paper needs to address what are the new methods to better reveal the protection areas by comparing the existing methodology and approaches. What are interdisciplinary studies currently available (e.g. hydrochemistry and environmental isotopes), or newly used? Are there similar applications in the literature? The novelty of the study (if available) should be emphasized. In my opinion, the authors focused on the modeling phase too much, which shaded other sections.
Considering these major comments and minor recommendations (added in the pdf file), I recommend a major revision.
Kind regards,
The reviewer.
Major comments
The introduction must be tidied up. State of the art is not shared, and the aim of the study is not clear. The majority of the given information in the introduction is related to the site description and should be moved to the Study Area section.
The study area section is too long to read and understand. There is too much (unnecessary) information and details are shared. There are lots of sub-sections, and I recommend merging them into the “Geology” and “Hydrogeology” sub-sections.
For instance:
“4.3 Simulation of groundwater flow in the thermal aquifer” is enough for a header. Do not divide these sections into sub-pieces (4.3.1/ 4.3.2/ 4.3.3…) Give all the necessary information by summarising. This is what I mean:
4.3.4 Hydrogeological parameters are given in separate sub-sections (4.3.4.1. or 4.3.4.2….) These details do not make the paper better, please decrease the resolution of the details in the paper. Please merge these sub-sections as much as possible.
The results and discussion section includes too much information which should be given in “Model Setup”.
Figure 3 is a very well-prepared hydrogeological map, however, Figure 1 and Figure 2 should be merged into 1 figure. Figure 4 (in my opinion) is not necessary and could be removed from the manuscript.
The sub-section “4.3 Simulation of groundwater flow in the thermal aquifer” should be given in the “3.2 Modelling of hydrothermal system flow” sub-section. Please describe the model before giving the results.
You can find my minor details as comment boxes in the pdf document.
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Joaquín Sanz De Ojeda, 22 May 2024
Dear reviewer,
First of all, we would like to thank you for the time you have spent reviewing our manuscript. We strongly appreciate the constructive comments made, as we consider them to be very interesting.
Attached I include a PDF with your comments answered by us one by one in red.
As you can see, we have taken all your comments into account.
We have been working these days to update the manuscript, where we have taken into account all the comments from all the reviewers. Since we are unable to attach the revised manuscript, we respond below in as much detail as possible to all of the comments we have applied.
Thank you very much again for your review.
Author and Co-Authors
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Joaquín Sanz De Ojeda, 22 May 2024
-
RC3: 'Comment on hess-2024-82', Anonymous Referee #3, 28 May 2024
Ojeda et al. conducted interdisciplinary studies in Alhama de Aragón and Jaraba in Spain including the analysis of geologic and hydrogeologic conditions, the hydrochemical data, and groundwater modeling. Authors aimed to unravel the source of springs in the study area which would be helpful to the sustainable conservation strategy. Authors do use a lot of different kinds of data and build a likely sounding flow model. I think the results are important to understand the groundwater movement in the study area and this study is a good contribution. However, I don’t think the current manuscript is well prepared for publication in HESS. The reasons are as follows:
- The biggest problem is that the author didn’t well leverage the model they built. If the objective is to identify the source of the springs, after you built the well calibrated flow model and did particle tracking using MODPATH based on your flow field, why not analyze the flow paths of the particle tracking results. Then you can easily get what you want and then the modeling work is essentially meaningful.
- It looks like the authors’ idea is that they propose a kind of conceptual model based on geologic and hydrogeologic conditions. Then they build a flow model using modflow. If the calibrated model has a good performance on different hydrologic variables by comparing with observations, then their proposed conceptual model sounds. I really cannot agree such an idea as you didn’t correctly use the model and the modeling work lost its intrinsic significance.
- If the author can utilize the model well, the last part of hydrochemisty is not necessary. You can merge them into your analyzation of your particle tracking results and use these data to validate your particle tracking results. In Lines 859 and 861, it is sad to see ‘is assumed’ as you still cannot identity the flow paths after si many modeling efforts.
- So, the ‘interdisciplinary studies’ are like a documentation of all your work which do not connect each other tightly. The main line is not clear and a lot of descriptive sections just like filed work documentations.
- Also, there are too many names which are not well introduced in the manuscript, and it is really messy and hard to follow the many descriptive words. For example, the most important ‘Alhama de Aragón and Jaraba’ even did not appear in your Figure 1.
- There are also a lot of small errors everywhere in the manuscript and make it even harder to follow. For example, I don’t think the numbers in the caption of Figure 5 are right.
Line 781: I don’t think Figure 14 is the right figure you want to direct the audience to. Line 814: what is Fig. 16 and Fig. 16.
Fig. 18: I don’t think the legend is right. The red and blue points are neither observed values nor the simulated values.
Line 827: what does “in order to carry out this simulation” mean? Does ‘this simulation’ mean your modflow model? The modflow model does not necessarily depend on your particle tracking.
Line 946: you have the first half of the parenthesis, so where the second half? There are a lot of such small errors.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2024-82-RC3 -
AC3: 'Reply on RC3', Joaquín Sanz De Ojeda, 30 May 2024
Dear reviewer,
First of all, we want to thank you for the time you have dedicated to reviewing our manuscript, as well as for all the constructive comments made.
As we have done with the other reviewers, I am attaching a PDF with your comments answered by us one by one in red.
As you will see, we have taken all your comments into account since we found them very interesting. We had already taken many of them into account thanks to the previous review by the other reviewers. You will also see that we have responded quickly to some ot the other comments since we had made them initially but they had not been included in the manuscript for reasons of not extending it too much. Your dedication and time is greatly appreciated.
Thank you so muchAuthor and Co-Authors
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