{"id":76787,"date":"2026-02-04T12:51:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T19:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=76787"},"modified":"2026-02-05T15:21:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T22:21:15","slug":"lasala-canyon-springs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/lasala-canyon-springs\/","title":{"rendered":"Unlocking the \u2018black box\u2019 of\u00a0Grand Canyon\u2019s water supply"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every year at Grand Canyon National Park, millions of visitors from all over the world stop at one of a dozen water spigots. Most people are on a rim, seeing the canyon\u2019s majesty for the first time, when they step off the trail to refill a water bottle. Others are deep in the belly of the canyon, sweaty and tired, facing a hike up in punishing heat, filling their reservoirs and dumping water over their heads to avoid dehydration and heat stroke.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All that water comes from one place: Roaring Springs, a cave-fed spring on the North Rim. You can see and hear it from the North Kaibab Trail, though no trail approaches it. It\u2019s a lifeline for the canyon and everything that lives in it\u2014humans, plants and animals\u2014and it\u2019s increasingly at risk as the climate gets warmer and drier.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Researchers\u00a0in\u00a0NAU\u2019s School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems\u00a0are\u00a0leading research that maps\u00a0Roaring Springs\u00a0and other cave-fed springs. A new grant, funded by Grand Canyon National Park, will expand\u00a0mapping\u00a0across the park to understand how the snow and springs are connected.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUnderstanding where the water\u00a0sinks\u00a0is\u00a0critical for the infrastructure,\u00a0the animals, the plants and the rest of the ecosystems that rely on these springs,\u201d said\u00a0<\/span>Blase\u00a0LaSala<\/span><\/b>, a Ph.D. student in ecoinformatics. \u201cThey\u2019re like oases.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Read the early findings of his research, published in August in\u00a0<\/span>Nature Scientific Reports<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What to know about Grand Canyon\u2019s caves<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
\"Roaring
Roaring Springs in the North Rim, with a person (right) for scale. Photo credit: Dave Bunnell<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since most of us will never go in the caves\u2014they\u2019re not open to the public and most are far away from any trail\u2014our knowledge comes from mapping projects like the one LaSala did for his dissertation with professor Temuulen “Teki” <\/strong><\/span>Sankey<\/span><\/b>, who is an expert in remote sensing. LaSala\u2019s work used a mobile lidar sensor, which enabled him to create detailed 3D models of three caves, including the walls and ceiling. He and teams of park researchers and volunteers documented more than 10 kilometers of subterranean crawls, rooms and passages in 45 days. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI had no idea how large and long these caves\u00a0are,\u201d Sankey said. \u201cWe have been able to produce\u00a0really high-resolution\u00a03D maps, which, from a remote sensing perspective, is what\u2019s unique and novel about it.\u00a0Grand Canyon\u2019s caves have never been mapped in 3D like this.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The teams hiked to the caves\u2014up to\u00a0two days each way\u2014carrying 55-pound packs, including the mobile lidar equipment. They hiked,\u00a0rappelled\u00a0and floated through\u00a0flooded passages\u00a0to create these detailed maps,\u00a0taking\u00a0note of\u00a0each\u00a0cave\u2019s shape and its cracks.\u00a0Cave formation follows\u00a0specific rules, and patterns from networks of caves\u00a0tell a story about\u00a0what\u2019s\u00a0happening as water moves through the many layers of rock.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Where does the water come from?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Easy answer:\u00a0mostly\u00a0the surface.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0almost entirely\u00a0snowmelt from the Kaibab Plateau.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But how it gets to the springs and what it picks up along the way is much more circuitous.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of us have seen\u00a0<\/span>graphics showing the different rock layers<\/span><\/a> in the Grand Canyon. The cave-fed springs are in Redwall and Muav limestone; several other rock layers separate them from the surface of the Kaibab Plateau. Dye tracer tests led by the park have shown that water moves quickly through these layers; <\/span>Abe Springer<\/span><\/b>, a professor in the School of Earth and Sustainability and a collaborator with Sankey and\u00a0LaSala, has\u00a0worked with the park to\u00a0drop dye into sinkholes on the surface that\u00a0traveled\u00a0about\u00a020\u00a0kilometers\u00a0to\u00a0springs in as little as a week.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the paths it takes to get there\u00a0depend\u00a0on the cracks and faults within the rock, the porousness of the rock and more that researchers just\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0know.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe dissertation work was making the geologic connection between what we might see at the surface\u00a0versus\u00a0what we might see hundreds or thousands of feet belowground,\u201d Sankey said.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A
A team member uses the handheld remote sensing device to collect data on the surface of the Grand Canyon.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like looking at a black box,\u201d LaSala added. \u201cYou see what comes in and what comes out, but it\u2019s very hard to quantify what\u2019s going on in there. Now that we know what patterns are there, we can really start to relate the data to spring change over time.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One big question is contamination. The biggest springs in the Grand Canyon are karst-fed springs, which Sankey described as the \u201cSwiss cheese\u201d of rocks. The speed the water can flow through the caves and cracks leaves little time for filtration. If runoff from burned areas, or <\/span>E. coli,<\/span><\/i>\u00a0flows into sinkholes<\/span>\u00a0connected to\u00a0Roaring\u00a0Springs\u00a0Cave,\u00a0the park may need to\u00a0halt\u00a0the pumps until it\u00a0can resolve the issue.\u00a0Identifying\u00a0where\u00a0contaminants\u00a0come\u00a0from helps\u00a0park officials address the\u00a0source of the problem,\u00a0preventing\u00a0future water supply shutdowns.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What this new project entails<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

A<\/span>\u00a0new phase in this research<\/span>\u00a0will begin<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>in early 2026. Using airborne lidar and satellite data from the last several decades, <\/span>LaSala<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>and Sankey will map the sinks on both sides of the canyon and track snowmelt accumulation in the last 40 years.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of this fieldwork will be on the surface\u2014though if they find caves, LaSala\u2019s happy to jump in and explore further with mobile lidar\u2014and will result in a better understanding of the geologic controls that cause sinkhole collapse and disappearing streams. They\u2019ll look for similar patterns of growth, movement and fault activity as they did in caves, which will help determine how water flows through the uppermost rock layers and will inform future dye tracing tests.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Blase
Blase LaSala in the hike to cave entrances.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Snowmelt is a particularly\u00a0timely\u00a0question, as Arizona has seen less snow over the years, and\u00a0the\u00a0Grand\u00a0Canyon is no exception. This study will create\u00a0a large data archive that, combined with lidar and other image sources, will help scientists and\u00a0resource\u00a0managers\u00a0understand the water\u00a0system\u00a0dynamics\u00a0across the region.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This research will help Grand Canyon\u00a0National Park, but its findings are more far-reaching than northern Arizona; more than 1 billion\u00a0people\u00a0worldwide rely on karst springs for water, so\u00a0modeling\u00a0how water moves through karst systems\u00a0is applicable globally. It also may be of use to Native American tribes who are in or\u00a0adjacent to\u00a0the park.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exciting to find patterns that verify the hypotheses\u00a0made over\u00a050 years\u00a0ago,\u201d\u00a0LaSala\u00a0said. \u201cWe have all this amazing data now, and\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0trying to combine it\u00a0with other data\u00a0to find useful things. There are so many places that could\u00a0benefit\u00a0from this type of\u00a0analysis.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How does the Dragon Bravo Fire change the research?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Both\u00a0LaSala\u00a0and Sankey\u00a0responded to the question with a shrug. Curveballs are normal in research.\u00a0This is a big one, but it\u00a0won\u2019t\u00a0be the only one.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a new twist to our study,\u201d Sankey said.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The results of the fire will change what they find along the Kaibab Plateau, and they will have to integrate its environmental effects into their work.\u00a0They\u2019ll\u00a0help the park however they can in that regard,\u00a0LaSala\u00a0said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/p>\n

Heidi Toth | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-8737 | heidi.toth@nau.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every year at Grand Canyon National Park, millions of visitors from all over the world stop at one of a dozen water spigots. Most people are on a rim, seeing the canyon\u2019s majesty for the first time, when they step off the trail to refill a water bottle. Others are deep in the belly of…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":76788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}