The Window of the Universe
The Journey of Water
Subsoil water from Mt.Chokai flowing into the Sea of Japan
Rainfall in the mountain seeps into the ground of the forest, flows underground, and springs out from the sand beach along the coast of the Sea of Japan after several decades. The circulation of water makes the mountain alive, develops life, and nourishes the sea.
Exhibition Contents
Along the Kamaiso Coast in the northern part of Yamagata Prefecture, you can see water bubbling out from the sand beach and between the rocks. The spring water is the rainfall and snowmelt from Mount Chokai, located near the Kamaiso Coast, spouting out from underground after a few decades.
Mount Chokai is made up of the layers of lava that flowed out during volcanic activity from about 600,000 years ago. The bed of lava rock with many gaps between the top and bottom parts of the rock works like a sponge and stores a large amount of water. This groundwater, containing abundant minerals, provides a very rich abundance of water to the sea of Kamaiso.
Back Story
Water circulating by changing its form
Moisture in the atmosphere falls in the forms of rain and snow, and turns into rivers that flow into seas and lakes. Some of the rainwater seeps inside the soil, and reappears on the ground surface as spring water. Moisture evaporated from rivers, lakes, and seas falls on the ground again as rain and snow. As such, water on the Earth is circulating by constantly changing its form, using the heat from the Sun as the source of energy.
About 97% of water on the surface of the Earth is in the sea, and about 2% is contained in glaciers and ice. The third largest amount is in the form of groundwater, accounting for about 0.8%. Actually, far more water than that in lakes and rivers, which accounts for about 0.01%, is stored underground. Water contained in the bodies of living creatures takes up the least amount, accounting for about 0.00004% of the entire water on the Earth.
From the perspective of usability for us, fresh water makes up about 2.5% of the total amount. Most of it is in ice and glaciers in the polar region and in groundwater. Indeed, the water we can use for our lives makes up only 0.01% of the total amount on the Earth. If the Earth was about the size of your head, a ball containing all the water we can drink would only be about 1mm in diameter.
