Temperature variation in springs has important implications for ecosystem health, but the spatial distribution of temperature is little understood. Spring orifice geometry has been linked to temperature variation, so different spring types are expected to exhibit differences in the distribution of temperature. In southern Wisconsin, two spring types can be found - fracture and seepage filtration. I expect fracture springs to have a more homogeneous temperature distribution across the spring orifice area, and seepage filtration springs to have a more heterogeneous distribution. This can be tested with thermal photographs of the two spring types.

I am analyzing thermal photographs of five fracture springs and five seepage filtration springs using ArcGIS and JMP. ArcGIS is used to edit out irrelevant temperature values from the images, and JMP converts the temperature values in each image to a histogram showing the distribution of temperature across the spring surface. Preliminary analysis shows that fracture springs do have a more homogeneous distribution of temperatures than seepage filtration springs.