The SearchResearch world really is different now...
 |
| Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania (P/C Wikimedia) In a beautiful, unpolluted portion of the stream. |
... to exactly nobody's surprise.
Last week I asked a Challenge question about the Susquehanna River, asking about one truly dramatic point-source of pollution that changes the color of an important tributary into the Susquehanna from clear to… what color?
This week's Challenge was this:
1. Can you find this truly amazing point-source of pollution in a tributary of the Susquehanna River? Where is it? What’s the point source called and what tributary does it flow into? Why is it even there?
2. What color is the water just downstream from this point source?
The new SearchResearch world includes AI tools like Gemini, ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Grokker (etc etc.). And when they work, the AIs work remarkably well. To try this out, I copy/pasted the text of the post into several AIs. Here was the prompt (I copied the core of the post):
[ The mighty Susquehanna River begins near Cooperstown, NY from the confluence of two main branches: the North Branch, and the West Branch, which join in central Pennsylvania. Between the source and the river's destination in Chesapeake Bay, hundreds of tributaries join with the main river.
The river drainage is around 27,500 square miles (71,000 km2), which is nearly half of the land area of Pennsylvania, and is the single largest inflow into the Chesapeake Bay.
As you can imagine, the Susquehanna River is fairly heavily polluted with agricultural runoff and sewage picked up during its long run to the sea. But there’s one truly dramatic point-source of pollution that changes the color of an important tributary from clear to… what?
That’s today’s Challenge.
1. Can you find this truly amazing point-source of pollution in a tributary of the Susquehanna River? Where is it? What’s the point source called and what tributary does it flow into? Why is it even there?
2. What color is the water just downstream from this point source?
The backstory is fascinating. Can you figure it out? ]
I just pasted that entire Challenge into Gemini and got a very good answer! Here's what Gemini told me:
The Old Forge Borehole
The "truly dramatic" point source you are looking for is the Old Forge Borehole, a massive artificial geyser of acid mine drainage in Pennsylvania.
1. The Challenge Details
What is the point source called? The Old Forge Borehole.
Where is it? It is located in Old Forge, Pennsylvania (Lackawanna County), specifically near the Union Street Bridge.
What tributary does it flow into? It discharges directly into the Lackawanna River, a major tributary that feeds into the Susquehanna River.
Why is it even there? The borehole was not an accident, but an engineered solution. In 1961, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers drilled the hole to relieve massive hydrostatic pressure from flooded underground coal mines that was forcing mine water into the basements of local homes and businesses. It acts as a pressure relief valve for a vast underground "pool" of flooded mine workings (the Scovell Pool) that covers roughly 15 square miles.2. The Color Change
What color is the water? Just downstream from the borehole, the clear waters of the Lackawanna River turn a shocking, opaque orange (often described as rusty orange or yellow-orange).The Science Behind the Color: The water shooting out of the borehole is heavily laden with dissolved iron, sulfate, and other metals from the abandoned coal mines. When this oxygen-poor water hits the air and the river water, the iron oxidizes (rusts) almost instantly, forming iron oxide precipitates that coat the riverbed and turn the water a bright, unnatural orange for the final three miles before it joins the Susquehanna.
Of COURSE I checked this answer. There's a great article on the Old Forge Borehole from a website dedicated to tracking underground mining in the US. Both the Old Forge and Lackawanna River Wikipedia articles talk about the borehole, all agreeing with and confirming what Gemini told us.
And, in fact, the Old Forge borehole is the mine drainage site I was thinking of when I posted the Challenge.
But let's try some other AIs:
ChatGPT: When given the same prompt, it also did a decent job--though with less detail, but it did include some good images of the polluted river.
Claude: Gave a bit more detail in the answer, telling us that "By winter 1961-62, a "rainless flood" struck. Water forced its way out of mine entries and mine boreholes, creating a persistent stream that formed a glacier-like formation making roads impassable and encasing some homes..." That's a good explanation about WHY the borehole was made.
Grokker: Gave a totally different answer, pointing instead to the "Askam Borehole, located in Hanover Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, near the village of Askam. It discharges into Nanticoke Creek, a tributary of the Susquehanna River." The Nanticoke Creek also has severely polluted water that's nearly all orange downstream of the borehole.
Deepseek: Gives a completely wrong answer, pointing to a hallucinated "Audubon Mine" tunnel and borehole there. However, it ALSO points to Shamokin Creek as a point source of pollution, which does indeed have a mine drainage problem turning the creek orange. (While it also drains into the Susquehanna River, it does so 82 miles / 131 km southeast of Old Forge.)
Image from Google Earth. Annotations by Dan, showing the change in river water
color downstream of the abandoned mine sites.
What I find so interesting about the differences in the answers between the AIs is that there are MULTIPLE possible answers to the Challenge.
Remember that I wrote that we're looking for "...one truly dramatic point-source of pollution that changes the color of an important tributary."
In fact, there are many point-sources of pollution that change the water color. There's the Old Forge Borehole, the Askam Borehole, the Hughes Borehole, and the Butler Water Tunnel (at Pittson, PA), all of which discharge vast amount of toxic waste into the watershed.
Interesting that none of the AIs mentioned that there are multiple mine discharge sites that are polluters, coming with festive acidic water color changes!
If you do a regular Google search like this:
[ list of boreholes in Pennsylvania that are acid mine discharge sources ]
It's easy to find that there are literally hundreds of sites in Pennsylvania that discharge orange acidic water into the local rivers, including at least 100 that discharge into the Susquehanna. This search led me to the "Abandoned Mines in Pennsylvania" map, which shows all of the abandoned mine sites. Clicking on a site gives details about the condition of the mines and the watery discharge.
mapmaker.millersville.edu/pamaps/AbandonedMines/
SearchResearch Lessons
The answer I was looking for was the point source from the "Old Forge Borehole," easily found by using most any AI (except Grokker).
This is great, and a useful arrow to have in your quiver of SearchResearch talents.
However... the interesting backstory here is that none of the AIs pointed out that there are many, many, many sites that have huge amounts of point-source pollution. That's an observation you have to make on your own by reading the results carefully. Our SRS skills show us that there are around 9,000 different point sources of acid mine discharge in the state, many of which turn the clear water a toxic shade of orange.
Bottom line: Even though AIs often can answer the SearchResearch Challenges (or any question that you might pose in a similar way), the real story is often an observation that you, the human with a larger perspective and a desire to understand the story, can bring to the Challenge. The AIs will answer the question you pose, but very well might miss the forest for the trees.
Keep searching. And keep looking for those stories.
No comments:
Post a Comment