On the issue of mineral water provinces of the USSR

Abstract

This article should be considered as the first attempt to provide a zoning scheme for underground mineral waters across the vast territory of our Union. This zoning is based on two features that characterize a particular area: 1) the type of association of mineral waters inherent in a given area, i.e., the characteristics of their gas and chemical composition, temperature, etc., 2) the geological conditions of the area. The study of extensive materials on mineral springs of the USSR showed that mineral waters can be divided into: 1) waters that are almost universally distributed, for example, “ferruginous”; they could be called “cosmopolitan” waters, 2) waters that have strictly defined areas of their distribution. These are, for example, waters carbonated with carbon dioxide, salty waters, etc. It is convenient to call such waters “regional” waters. Typically, a particular region is characterized by not just one type of water, but by a group of waters of different composition. This group of waters is characterized by the predominance of waters of one particular composition over the others. These predominant waters set, as it were, the “main tone” to which the rest of the waters of this group are subordinated. The remaining waters of this group are also not “random”, but form an association of waters with common related features, which allows us to speak, as it were, of their “paragenesis”. There are several such groups of waters, which have a wide regional distribution on the territory of the USSR: 1) a group of alkaline earth hydrocarbonate (less commonly sodium bicarbonate) cold and warm types. carbonating with carbon dioxide, 2) a group of sodium sulfate, chloride, and less often bicarbonate thermal waters, weakly mineralized, carbonating with nitrogen, 3) a group of salty cold waters, highly mineralized, practically gas-free.