Madison Bommelaere
 10/21/2016



                                                  Wall Springs and Anderson park       
                  On Friday October, 21st our class went to visit Wall Springs and Anderson park after. Wall spring is a very interesting park located off of Alt 19 in Palm Harbor, but there's no signs or anything and its very easy to miss. Wall Springs is home to a natural spring that is super clear at 0% salinity and houses an array of fish, turtles and grasses. The spring dumps out into salt water creating an estuary then ultimately reaching the Gulf Of Mexico.In 1927 Wall Springs used to be a health spa as the family's revenue were people can come swim, relax and get health treatments. The spring puts out anywhere from 0-7405 gallons of water per minute, but the average for wall springs 2917 gallons a minute or 4.2million gallons a day.
We saw some fresh water fish like the Blue Gill and a turtle along with mullet fish that can live in either fresh or salt water which were in both bodies of water the spring and brackish estuary. Its a care free life for the mullet in the spring because there aren't the same predators like in the ocean. The main thing the mullet need to worry about in the spring are hawks and other large fish praying birds because of the clear shallow water. naturally along the estuary were tons of mangroves and the soil of the bottom was soft and mucky.
                     At Anderson Park we visited a sink hole, once we actually found it. Its a fairly large "Wet sink" because its depths reach the ground water. The sink hole is some how connected to lake tarpon on one side and the gulf on the other through underwater tunnels; although the connection doesn't transfer salt water in to lake tarpon which relies on its fresh water because human efforts have plugged up the hole on that side to maintain the fresh water.