Dzhergalan Thermal Water Deposit was discovered accidentally during the drilling of a parametric well by the "Kyrgyzneft" management in the early 1960s in the valley of the Dzhergalan River, 200 meters upstream from the bridge over it on the Tyup-Karakol highway. The absolute elevation of the area here is 1630 m, which is about twenty meters higher than the level of Lake Issyk-Kul.
This was the first deep well in the Pre-Issyk-Kul region, yielding thermal water at nearly 20 l/s with a temperature of 46° C, and in favorable conditions for economic development — on a plain, near the river and the highway. Such a combination of circumstances led to the rapid development of the well with light structures for the inter-farm resort "Dzhergalan." It is truly accurate to say that there is nothing more stable than temporary structures.
The water from the first well and from the well drilled 15 years later by the "Geominvodkaptazh" expedition comes to the surface from a depth of about one thousand meters with a pressure of about one hundred meters above the mouth. In composition, it is sodium chloride with an increased content of sulfate ions, which, on one hand, indicates its similarity and possible kinship with numerous manifestations of thermal waters in the mountainous framing of Pre-Issyk-Kul and the Chui Basin, and its connection to the prior movement of water through tectonic faults in the foundation of the Issyk-Kul Basin, formed by Paleozoic rocks. On the other hand, this raises many perplexing questions for specialists, as geophysical data clearly indicate that at the location of this well, the depth to the foundation is at least 3000 m. How such water can penetrate through a 1.5–2-kilometer thick layer of predominantly fine-grained Cenozoic sediments from the foundation to the well filters is difficult to imagine, even for the most daring forecaster. Or perhaps it is heated by conductive heat flow through well-conducting fine-grained sediments? But then why does it have the same content of fluorine and some other components as in low-mineralized thermal waters from tectonic faults?