From Wikipedia with Modifications: The Cascade Range, or Cascades, is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as many of those in the North Cascades, and the notable volcanoes known as the High Cascades. The highest peak in the range is Mount Rainier in Washington at 14,411 feet (4,392 m).
The Cascades are part of the Pacific Ocean’s Ring of Fire, the ring of volcanoes and associated mountains around the Pacific Ocean. All of the eruptions in the contiguous United States over the last 200 years have been from the Cascade Volcanoes. The two most recent were Lassen Peak from 1914 to 1921 and a major eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. Minor eruptions of Mount St. Helens have also occurred since, most recently from 2004 to 2008. The Cascade Range is a part of the American Cordillera, a nearly continuous chain of mountain ranges (cordillera) that form the western “backbone” of North, Central, and South America.
The Cascades are home to many national parks and protected areas, including North Cascades National Park, Mount Rainier National Park, Crater Lake National Park, and Lassen Volcanic National Park. The northern half of the Pacific Crest Trail follows the range.
From BBHSP Education Program: Big Bend sits on the eastern side of the Cascade range, halfway in between the two southern-most volcanoes, Lassen Peak and Mt. Shasta. Big Bend is about 30 miles from each summit of these amazing volcanoes.
A deep underground lava tube extends under the Cascade Range, connecting all the volcanoes and heating up the bedrock above, which heats up water that runs into the ground from the abundant rainwater and snowmelt of the Cascades. When the water is heated by the hot rocks, natural minerals dissolve in it and thermodynamic forces cause the hot water to come up to the surface as artesian hot springs.
Thermodynamics: The heated water comes up through cracks in the bedrock, where major fault lines connect with minor fault lines, resulting in hot springs, such as BBHS and Kosk Creek hot springs, which is further down the same major fault line that runs under the town of Big Bend and along (under) a section of the Pit River before running under a hill to Kosk Creek.
Big Bend Major Geologic Fault Line: The approximate route follows Indian Springs Creek and the Pit River section before going near Kosk Creek. Hot water comes up to the surface in numerous spots along the fault line including coming up under and into the river.
California has 305 hot springs, the second most of any state (Nevada has the most)! Big Bend sits on top of a major geologic fault line that runs more or less along Indian Springs Creek and into the Pit River. Minor fault lines connect with the major fault line and that’s where the hot springs mostly exist. The main hot spring at Big Bend Hot Springs is right over the intersection of a minor fault line with the major fault line. That hot spring is called “The Mother Source”, and the water is scalding (180º F!), and is the 27th hottest hot spring in California (out of 305 hot springs in the state).
Human-made hot wells also exist in Big Bend. The hot wells are drilled into the hot aquifer that sits under the Big Bend part of the Cascades volcanic mountain range. The school has a hot well that was used to heat the building and the swimming pool (near the creek and over the same major fault line). The PSEA camp has a hot well used to heat their swimming pool. Four hot wells were experimentally drilled in 1988 by a power company looking for steam to generate electricity. One of the four exploratory wells is 1200 feet deep and produces an artesian flow of 180ºF+ mineral water from the hot aquifer that has the same chemistry as the hot springs. Water boils at 212ºF, so the Big Bend hot springs and hot well are considered “low temperature” (below boiling), even though they are scalding.
The Bottom Line- Making Electricity from the hot water: Newer hydrothermal generation system technology nowadays uses a working fluid that has a lower boiling point than water, so less heat is needed to drive the turbine to generate electricity. Big Bend Hot Springs Project has acquired a geothermal generator to make electricity from “waste heat”. When it gets hooked up, it will cool the mineral water down for soaking use while making a lot of electricity (10kW-20kW) with the captured heat, to sell to the grid! More information about this project is in several posts like this one on this web site in the list/menu of posts located on the right side of most web pages here (especially in the main post about this called, “Geothermal Power Plant“).