Grün mineral spring: How serpentinites affect mineral springs

Grün mineral spring: How serpentinites affect mineral springs

The Grün mineral spring, also called the Luční spring after the nearby village of Louka/Grün, belonged to Engelbert Zuleger, a landowner from Louka. He was likely inspired by the collection and sale of the Nová Ves mineral spring (Novoveská kyselka) by Duke Beaufort, and in 1899, he began distributing his own Grün mineral water.

After Zuleger, the mineral spring changed owners several times, with the Vienna-based company Strašnický & Co. among them, which in 1920 pushed through a protective zone prohibiting mining activities and exploratory drilling.

The year 1928 was significant when the Löser couple bought the spring with grand plans to establish a small spa. They expanded the bottling plant and founded the famous excursion restaurant „Café Almbrünnl“, known for its colorful sunshades, delicious cakes, and live band. A bus connection from Mariánské Lázně was provided by the Kontinent bus line. They also invested in a new catchment system for the spring – a 6-meter-deep shaft sheltered by an octagonal pavilion. Twenty-one steps led down to a bottling area at the bottom, where the mineral water flowed from a triple tap. The entire space required electrical ventilation due to the accumulation of carbon dioxide.

The crisis of the 1930s impacted the prosperity of the enterprise, leading to a gradual decline. During World War II, much like the neighboring Nová Ves spring (Novoveská kyselka), it was seized by SS units and, due to its long shelf life, exported for the needs of the Reich. Prisoners of war from a nearby camp were used for the bottling operations.

After the war, the mineral water was bottled only seasonally. Following the establishment of the military training area, it was briefly used by the army until the end of 1950. The spring then flowed unused until 1990, when, thanks to Ing. Ivan Baťa, the state enterprise Západočeská zřídla in Karlovy Vary began bottling it again.

Today’s publicly accessible outlet is often mistakenly considered to be the source of Magnesia, the mineral water distributed by Karlovarské minerální vody. In reality, Magnesia mineral water is collected from multiple boreholes with slightly different compositions, making the accessible outlet of the Grünská kyselka (Grün Spring) just one of its components.

HOW DO SERPENTINITES AFFECT THE COMPOSITION OF MINERAL WATERS? The Slavkov Forest (Slavkovský les) is characterized by numerous outlets of mineral springs. All these springs are similar in many ways—they are cold, with an average temperature of 8–10 ºC, mostly weakly mineralized, and originate at shallow depths. However, vast differences exist in their chemical composition. Depending on where the mineral water originates—that is, which rocks the water flows through—different chemical substances dissolve in it. The serpentinite area is the source of mineral springs that contain large amounts of magnesium (so-called magnesium-hydrogen carbonate mineral waters). An extreme case is the Grün mineral spring (Grünská kyselka), which you can taste here. Among its cations, it contains practically only magnesium, because the area where the surface water infiltrates the soil, the downward flow of the groundwater, and the actual ascent of the mineral water to the surface all take place exclusively within serpentinites. Therefore, it ranks among the springs with the highest concentrations of magnesium in the world!

Allow yourselves to be drawn into the stories from nature and history of ‘Slavkovský’ forest!

• visit also ‘The house of nature’ in Kladská!
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