The bedrock topography of southwestern Ohio and its implications for Quaternary drainage changes
- Qsource Environmental Services, Inc., Miamisburg, OH (United States)
The bedrock topography of southwestern Ohio has been mapped, using Ohio Department of Natural Resources well log data, geophysical depth determinations and computer contouring techniques. Based on these maps, there is no deep col located to the north, east or west of Dayton that would have allowed for preglacial drainage of the Kentucky River system of Teller (1970, 1973) northward into the Teays River. Strath terraces and abandoned, high level river valley segments indicate that the ancestral Miami River drained southward, from central Miami County, through Dayton, to Hamilton Ohio. This river system joined with the northward-flowing Kentucky, Licking and Manchester Rivers near Hamilton, and apparently flowed to the west, into Indiana via the Whitewater River system and the Anderson Buried Valley. The valleys that existed in southwestern Ohio at this time were not deeply incised, with a thalweg elevation of approximately 700 feet at the Ohio-Indiana border. The absence of major tributaries to the Teays River in western Ohio, and the path of the river across several preglacial divides suggest that this segment of the Teays River is not the preglacial drainage pathway for the river that drained Ohio and West Virginia. The true preglacial Teays River probably drained to the north or northeast, into the Lake Erie Basin. This preglacial river was diverted into the classical Teays pathway across western Ohio and eastern Indiana by the first glacial advance that affected the region. The classical Teays River was dammed by a subsequent glacial advance, and diverted into the Ohio River drainage to Cincinnati (the Manchester River of Teller, 1970, 1973). This diversion occurred prior to 700,000 B.P., as shown by the reversed paleomagnetic directions of the Minford clays that filled the dammed lake basin.
- OSTI ID:
- 5935776
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-921058-; CODEN: GAAPBC
- Journal Information:
- Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States), Vol. 24:7; Conference: 1992 annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA), Cincinnati, OH (United States), 26-29 Oct 1992; ISSN 0016-7592
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Late-glacial and postglacial history of the hill'', Norwich University campus, Northfield, Vermont
Asynchronous ice lobe retreat and glacial Lake Bascom: Deglaciation of the Hoosic and Vermont valleys, southwestern Vermont