The Boils
The Boils is a large karst spring in Jackson County, Tennessee. It is unusual for two reasons. The first is that it is quite large, and the second is that it comes out of the ground under pressure. The Boils are no secret to the folks of Jackson County, though. It's unusual waters have been a curiosity for generations inviting speculation on its source. Oddly, this feature went unnoticed by scientists until the summer of 2015, when my friend Ryan Gardner undertook describing the system that feeds The Boils as his senior thesis for his Earth Science Degree from Tennessee Tech University. Ryan assembled a team of karst specialists from the region that included Steve Anderson, Dr. Evan Hart, and myself. Ben Herrmann, while not a karst specialist, assisted with data collection and logistics (like getting me down a river of class three rapids). My goal within the project was to provide video and photo documentation up front, and on the back end provide data analysis and maps. I w...