The New River in West Virginia is a vestige of a a long way older river device, remnants of which stay just about hidden. (Picture: David Sibray)
WEST VIRGINIA IS HAUNTED by means of the shadows of rivers that not exist. They writhe like snakes via its mountains, just about invisible to the unaware.
Geologist William G. Tight first theorized the lifestyles of what is now possibly the best-known of those hidden rivers, the “Teays River,” in 1903. He instructed the Teays used to be considered one of two primary river programs that tired a lot of West Virginia ahead of the closing Ice Age; the opposite used to be the Monongahela River, which nonetheless drains a part of the northern state.
The Kanawha River close to Buffalo, West Virginia, used to be part of the traditional Pocatalico River. (Picture courtesy David Sibray)
Since his discovery, a military of geologists and geology scholars have accrued samples in different states to piece in combination what took place to the Teays. The mighty river rose a number of the historic Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina and wandered throughout southern West Virginia and Ohio ahead of emptying into the Mississippi River in Illinois.
What took place to the river? A continent-sized glacier, the Laurentide Ice Sheet, buried it beneath hundreds of thousands of heaps of sediment. Regardless that it slightly touched West Virginia, the ice sheet considerably reshaped the western and northerly portions of the state.
West Virginia ahead of the closing Ice Age
MORE THAN TWO MILLION YEARS AGO, maximum rivers in West Virginia and western Pennsylvania ran northward into Canada. The Ohio River and the Nice Lakes didn’t then exist, and plenty of rivers have since vanished.
These days’s Monongahela River used to be a tributary of 1 such river, identified by means of geologists because the Pittsburgh River. It ran northward via western Pennsylvania and used to be a tributary of the Erigan River, which not exists. The Erigan used to be a tributary of the St. Lawrence River, which emptied into the Atlantic Ocean.
Map appearing Erigan and Teays in a northwest observe. (Map courtesy Ohio Dept. of Herbal Sources)
Its counterpart to the south, the Teays River, began in North Carolina and adopted the routes of the New and Kanawha rivers northward till it reached a space close to Saint Albans, West Virginia, the place it headed west.
Geologists nonetheless debate the place the Teays went after achieving its westward bend. Some counsel it grew to become north and traveled via central Ohio till it reached the Erigan River. Others consider it coursed west via Ohio and Indiana till it reached the Mississippi River.
Maximum assume it adopted the western direction, regardless that it is imaginable it took the central Ohio trail. Steven Kite, emeritus professor of geology and geography at West Virginia College, says one of the most sheet’s early incursions will have buried that channel and compelled the river to waft west.
“This situation turns out very more likely to me,” he mentioned. “I feel too many glacial geologists had been in search of a easy drainage tale when the glacial document obviously presentations the closing two-plus million years had been advanced.”
A Google terrain map presentations the riverless Teays Valley (together with the group of Teays Valley, West Virginia) stretching east-to-west between the valley of the Ohio River, within the west and that of the Kanawha, within the east.
Whilst these kinds of prehistoric rivers flowed north, the small Marietta River used to be one exception to the guideline. It flowed south to enroll in the Teays. A divide separated its basin from that of the Steubenville River, which flowed north from the similar house to the Pittsburgh River. The divide is now positioned close to what is close to New Martinsville, West Virginia.
Small regardless that they have been, the Marietta and Steubenville rivers performed a key function in developing the Ohio River when the ice sheets retreated.
Glaciers: Nature’s Large Belt Sander
WHILE SEVERAL POSSIBLE CAUSES of the Ice Age exist, there’s a consensus that international temperatures dropped about two million years in the past. This allowed ice to acquire on land quicker than it melted or evaporated, developing glaciers.
Moved by means of the pressure in their weight, glaciers scour the land underneath them. (Picture courtesy Michael Hamments)
Because it amassed, the burden of the ice compressed the decrease layers and brought about them to waft or advance beneath their weight alongside the Earth’s floor in what geologists name a glaciation.
“The ‘moves-due-to-its-own-weight’ is essential,” Kite mentioned. “We generally call to mind ice as brittle, however in case you increase 200 to 300 ft of ice, it starts to deform like foolish putty.”
The glacier’s most sensible layer stays brittle and breaks as much as shape crevasses whilst the decrease layer advances over the Earth’s crust. An everlasting layer of ice doesn’t grow to be a glacier till it’s thick sufficient to transport.
Kite mentioned the shifting wall of ice is incessantly in comparison to a bulldozer, however it’s extra like a conveyor belt.
“Glaciers might perform a little little bit of pushing like a bulldozer within the wintry weather when there may be very little melting on the margins,” he mentioned. “Alternatively, bulldozing is trivial in comparison to the conveyor-belt processes during which glaciers do maximum in their paintings.”
He mentioned the ground of the ice sheet abrades the land like sandpaper and plucks up rocks and sediment that freeze to the ground of the glacier.
The particles accumulates into sediment-rich ice layers that waft towards the glacier’s edge, the place hotter temperatures soften the ice. Some sediments are over excited by means of meltwater, and a few get left in piles referred to as “terminal moraines” when the glacier retreats.Kite says a glacier doesn’t bodily transfer when it retreats. Its edges shrink again to less warm spaces as warming temperatures reason it to lose ice quicker than it accumulates. Fluctuating temperatures brought about the ice sheet to advance into and retreat from the US a minimum of 8 occasions all over the closing two million years.
Within the jap U.S., its furthest advance southward most probably reached spaces simply south of Cincinnati and simply north of Pittsburgh. Whilst it by no means reached West Virginia to any nice extent, some proof suggests a minimum of one glaciation reached a couple of miles into Hancock County in its northern panhandle.
The Newell Toll Bridge over the Ohio River at Newell, West Virginia, in Hancock County, carries US-30 from the Northern Panhandle Area of West Virginia into East Liverpool, Ohio.
To the west of the area, geologists consider glaciations reached as a long way south as Kentucky and part of Illinois additional south than south-central West Virginia.
In line with Brandon Graham, a geologist on the U.S. Geological Survey, ice sheets at their most coated about 25 p.c of the Earth’s floor and locked up sufficient water to drop sea point an estimated 400 ft, exposing spaces alongside the shore that have been ordinarily underwater.
A Story of Two Lakes: Teays and Monongahela
AS THE ICE SHEET ADVANCED, it dammed commonplace drainage channels, flooding the northern and western portions of West Virginia beneath two massive lakes—Lake Tight and Lake Monongahela.
Map approximating spaces coated Lake Tight and Lake Monongahela (Map courtesy Brian Bowling)
“Lake Tight” used to be created by means of damming the Teays River close to Chillicothe, Ohio, and used to be named after geomorphologist William G. Tight. It coated portions of Ohio and Kentucky and reached into West Virginia as a long way east because the New River Gorge.
To the north, the glacier created “Lake Monongahela” by means of damming the Pittsburgh River close to Pittsburgh. It coated portions of Ohio and Pennsylvania and stretched south into West Virginia, a minimum of as a long way south as Weston, West Virginia.
“Throughout the lifestyles of the lakes, heaps of sediment could be deposited,” Graham mentioned.The 2 lakes smoothed the topography and stuffed valleys. When the glacier retreated and the lakes tired, the river programs lower new channels in the course of the sediment, on occasion touring in new instructions.
So as to add standpoint, all of the occasions mentioned on this article took place greater than 100,000 years in the past, and maximum happened over 1000’s of years. Through comparability, the earliest identified presence of people in North The us used to be about 20,000 to twenty-five,000 years in the past.
Geologically talking, the 2 lakes have been “brief” since they simply existed whilst the rivers have been dammed by means of ice or glacial particles. But, they existed for 1000’s of years each and every time they shaped.
Geological Sleuthing
BOTH LAKES LEFT COMPLEX DEPOSITS that counsel that they shaped greater than as soon as. One clue as to their ages, Graham mentioned, comes from the Earth’s magnetic box.“As superb debris slowly settle via deep water, if they’ve magnetic minerals in them, they’ll orient to the magnetic box of the Earth,” he mentioned. “This orientation is preserved within the lake sediment and may also be measured.”
Full of fog the valley of the traditional Teays River extends westward from the Kanawha Valley. (Picture courtesy Nick Schaer)
The course of the Earth’s magnetic box has reversed or “flipped” a number of occasions. Graham mentioned ahead of the closing reversal, about 780,000 years in the past, a compass would have pointed south quite than north.
Magnetic debris within the decrease sediment ranges of each lakes level south, indicating that the ones layers shaped greater than 780,000 years in the past. Higher-level debris level north, appearing they settled to the lakes’ bottoms extra just lately.
Geologists have additionally studied the level of chemical weathering of the soils, vegetation, and pollen preserved in lake clays and feature used geologic mapping and pc modeling to construct an image of what took place within the area.Graham says different geologic proof, together with cosmogenic nuclide relationship, presentations that Lake Monongahela additionally shaped a minimum of two times. Different proof suggests each and every lake shaped greater than two occasions over the 2 million years.
If a lot of this turns out obscure, it’s as a result of geologists must take care of a number of stumbling blocks when piecing in combination the area’s geologic historical past. One of the most biggest stumbling blocks is that 1000’s of years of abrasion have altered the panorama and washed away a lot of the proof.
Cosmogenic nuclide relationship of debris presentations that Lake Monongahela additionally shaped a minimum of two times. (Picture courtesy Hans Reniers)
Even if estimating the scale of the 2 lakes, Graham says they should take care of the truth that a part of the terrain that made up our minds their form and intensity not exists.
“When the northern drainage used to be blocked by means of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, the ice dam would pressure the water to shape a lake till it spilled into every other drainage divide,” he mentioned.Geologists estimate that the divide close to New Martinsville, West Virginia, acted because the spillway between Lake Monongahela and Lake Tight, which used to be at a decrease elevation.
“As water persevered to waft over the spillway, erosion of the bedrock would decrease the hole and the extent of (Lake Monongahela),” he mentioned.
The Ohio River now follows the process the pre-glacial Marietta and Steubenville rivers, which met at present-day New Martinsville. (Picture courtesy Ronald Schupbach)
Geologists have discovered sediments from Lake Monongahela in high-elevation terraces in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. The best possible sediments had been discovered at 1,100 ft, so geologists estimate that used to be the unique peak of the divide.
An extra complication is that the glacier’s weight briefly bent the Earth’s crust whilst all this used to be going down. Along with scouring the land it crossed, the ice sheet added hundreds of thousands of heaps of weight to the Earth’s floor. That weight driven the land down—in some puts by means of masses of meters.Graham mentioned that forcing the land down in a single house additionally brought about the land past the glacier to upward thrust. The Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Management likens it to mendacity on a comfortable bed: The burden of A frame pushes down the bed underneath it whilst elevating the a part of the bed subsequent to it. Whilst you stand up, the bed slowly regains its unique form.
The Earth’s crust did the similar factor—most effective in geologic time quite than in a couple of mins. The Chestnut Ridge and Laurel Mountain phase of northern West Virginia, for instance, are nonetheless emerging from when the closing glacial advance driven them down. In the meantime, Virginia’s coastline continues to be losing from when the similar glacier driven it up.
All that water needed to cross someplace!
AS MENTIONED EARLIER, A RIDGE of land close to New Martinsville as soon as divided the Monongahela River basin from the Teays River basin.
Each and every time the glacier dammed the Pittsburgh River and created Lake Monongahela, the lake rose till it reversed the waft within the Steubenville River and overflowed the divide into the Marietta River.Ultimately, the repeated overflows carved an enduring channel in the course of the divide, completely becoming a member of the 2 basins.
Many rivers in northern West Virginia and western Pennsylvania tired north; the ones within the west tired west. (Map courtesy Brian Bowling)
Additional north in Pennsylvania, glaciation had a equivalent affect at the Allegheny River, which joins the Monongahela River at Pittsburgh to shape the Ohio River.
Each and every glaciation blocked the traditional drainage of the higher Allegheny whilst the glacier’s weight created a brief lowland alongside its edge. With nowhere else to move, it flowed southward alongside the glacier’s edge quite than northward.
When it reached some extent close to the border of western New York, it joined what is now the center Allegheny, which used to be busy carving a brand new trail south alongside the glacier’s edge till it reached the decrease Allegheny in north of Pittsburgh.On the similar time, the repeated glaciations buried the Pittsburgh River and, by the way, left in the back of sufficient point land for the longer term house of the Metal Town.
The start of the mighty Ohio River
THE CONFLUENCE OF THE NEW Allegheny River and the Monongahela River created the Ohio River, which adopted the Steubenville River’s trail into the Marietta River and the Teays River basin.
The Allegheny River (higher left) and Monongahela River (proper) sign up for at Pittsburgh to shape the Ohio. (Picture courtesy Vidar Nordi Mathisen)
Except for the Teays River used to be long past. The repeated damming of the river and the advent of Lake Tight had coated its valley—now referred to as Teays Valley—underneath hundreds of thousands of heaps of sediment.
Compelled to discover a new outlet, the Kanawha River carved a trail north in the course of the recent sediment till it reached Level Delightful and joined the Ohio River.
The similar glaciations additionally buried sections of the previous Teays River in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, forcing the Ohio River to carve a brand new trail to the Mississippi.
The Aftermath
GEOLOGISTS ESTIMATE THAT MUCH OF West Virginia and western Pennsylvania have been coated by means of delicate hills and meandering rivers ahead of the Pleistocene ice age.
The higher Ohio River and its relavant primary tributaries as they seem lately. (Map courtesy Brian Bowling)
When the lakes coated the ones river valleys with sediment, the rivers have been compelled to dig new channels. With glacial meltwater including to their flows, the briefly more potent rivers lower deeper, straighter channels.
The outcome used to be deeper rivers working via rather flat spaces. In northern West Virginia, the sediment shaped terraces alongside the Monongahela River, offering room for the houses, companies, and metal turbines of lately.
In western West Virginia, the brand new Teays Valley supported equivalent construction and the expansion of the suburban hall by which the towns of Charleston, Huntington, and Barboursville thrive.
Somewhere else within the northeastern U.S., terminal moraines deposited by means of the glaciations created a number of notable island programs, together with Martha’s Winery, Nantucket, and Lengthy Island.
On the finish of the ice age, warming international temperatures brought about the ice sheets to retreat till maximum disappeared, regardless that the Laurentide’s remnants come with the Barnes Ice Cap on Baffin Island.
The one closing ice sheets are in Greenland and Antarctica. The everlasting ice pack on the North Pole is technically now not a glacier since the Arctic Ocean separates it from the land underneath it.
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