Balneotheraphy - Healing with Water

What is thermal water?

Thermal water is identified as a hot water with composition rich in salts, iodine and gases. It emerges from natural thermal springs, spread all over the earth and practically on every continent, even in the oceans. In fact, the groundwater coming from hot springs is heated by geothermal processes and naturally flows to the land surface at a temperature of 70°F (approximately 21°C) or above. Geothermal springs can be found at places where magma is close to the surface, primarily in hotspot and volcanic districts or spreading ridge areas. The origin of many thermal springs can be found in aquifers, which are underground layers of rock and sand that contain water. Thermal water can also originate from artesian wells.



Following an example, the thermal water in the Gastein region (Austria) comes from natural hot springs, between 12,000 and 17,000 years old in the area of the Florentine Hill. It is rich in natrium chloride, emerging from a depth of 1,200 to 1,800m and coming out through solid rock on the surface. Its temperature is between 56°C and 68.8°C and the veryday productivity of the springs is around 800,000 litres of thermal water.

What is actually the process that thermal water goes through? Examinations for the Gastein region show that rain water seeps into the area of Graukogel and Hüttenkogel (approximately 1,800 meters above sea level), after that drops down to a depth of 2,000 meters, warms itself deep underground, and rises again up to about 1,000 meters above sea level. It emerges up in the Badberges area in Bad Gastein, from 17 different springs with a capacity of five million litres per day.

Another example refers to the thermal waters in the Gulf of Suez area, Egypt, Sri Lanka which temperature ranges from 32 to 70°C and are being emitted from springs and shallow artesian wells. According to a chemical study it was proven that the waters are paleometeoric waters from the Nubian sandstone aquifer. After examining the chemical and isotopic compositions of some solutes, the results indicated possible contributions from Tertiary sedimentary aquifer rocks and windblown deposits in the recharge area. There is a suggestion that the waters have been heated by percolation to a depth of several kilometers along the regional geothermal gradient.