I'm a Utah transplant born and raised in Chillicothe, OH. It's incredible to me how many people out west don't know about the rich geography and even richer history of the Ohio/Kentucky/Indiana region. These river systems were the lifeblood of the Hopewell and Adena cultures.
Haha right? Utahns are spoiled. Their geology is ab open book that even an amateur can read quite clearly. I am happy I stumbled upon this video. Gunna do some deep diving into this topic. (Utah native who lived in NW Ohio and western PA for a couple of years :)
@@bheer98 Born in Oregon, but lived the longest in Central Illinois. Very flat there except by the Illinois River, Mackinaw etc. Lived in Phoenix 1984-1985 for almost a year then moved to Virginia Beach for 3 years. Back to Illinois from 1988 till 2024. Now we live in Lucasville Ohio to be closer to Daughter and Husband who live near Wheelersburg. I like it here ! Very very different than Illinois in topography and culture ! Have been exploring different back roads and noticed the river valleys and valleys without rivers on Google maps. The Scioto river is about 4 miles from our house.
Chillicothe OH has the best dirt track Atomic speedway (it was K-C raceway to me growing up) a 3/8 mile with jaw dropping banking makes it faster than are 1/4 mile here lol omits my kids favorite track also
What amazes me even more is the the Ohio River is actually a continuation of the Monongahela River and not a separate river in itself. Hopefully this error will be corrected and then since the Mississippi River receives most of its water from the Mon it's name will be corrected too.
According to NASA, the poles of earth have reversed 183 times in the last 83 million years, and at least several hundred times in the past 160 million years. North America in ancient times was referred to by humanity as "turtle island" because it randomly would sink beneath the water and reemerge. This would include glaciation event's as well. Pre-recorded humanity has been traced back roughly four billion years, and recorded human history goes back to roughly three hundred thousand years. So these are just ancient water ways, even at higher altitudes as the magnetic poles changed and water displaced along the Earth's surface.
You can see how the ancient Teays flows underground in my region-Fort Wayne, Indiana through Western Ohio, close to US 30 before it heads south and east. The topography of the land is as a joined valley.
@@johnkingery403 I am from Columbus also; you probably remember the other river with the name that people mispronounce - the Olentangy, which merges with the Scioto river near downtown Columbus.
As someone from the Southern Ohio area, and grew up near Portsmouth. This answered very old questions I’ve had my entire life. Driving up and down these valleys I would always ask myself “what massive rivers flowed here?” This was really cool!
I was born and raised here in Chillicothe Ohio I am 47 years old and this video is very interesting and informative. It validates all the stories we were told about why just north of the town it gets flat and stays that way. I’ve always wondered why some of the valleys around here are so deep, I own property here and have done a lot of hunting and hiking. But this new knowledge is awesome it will be remembered and passed on thank you.
My dad actually works at a paper mill in Chillicothe and it was built there because of a MASSIVE water reservoir underneath the town. Super cool video!
When I was a kid, the smell of Mead Paper was so bad, if I was asleep, I'd wake up and know we were in Chillicothe. It stunk so bad. I was so glad when the EPA started regulating the pollution.
Maybe I’m just not as sensitive to it now, but I went right past the paper mill a couple weeks ago and it smelled, but not as bad as I remember the entire town smelling 15-20 years ago, so I think it’s gotten better maybe
The paper mill is one of the reasons I don't want to move further south to Chillicothe. Just shopping when the wind is blowing the wrong direction is painfully smelly. Otherwise I really like the town.
I never see any young people that know about the 5 glaciers that covered North America and elsewhere. 3 of the 5 glaciers made it down to Ohio. I grew up in the Unglaciated area of Wisconsin, maybe that is why I learned it in 5th grade. Very good video, thank you Sir.
Right, its so amazing to think about NA being covered. Heck, Long Island sound as it is today did'nt exist. LIS could of been a lake if not for glaciar's
My immediate thought was the rebound from glacial pressures lol Some folks know. But it's not something I was taught about in school ever. But we've also learned a lot so hopefully the younger kids are being taught some of it.
I don't know what you count as young people (I guess I get older every year, right?) but I did learn about the glaciers and other geological and archeological features of ancient Ohio around 5th-8th grade in the mid '00s. It was a big part of the state wide standardized testing at the time. I'm curious to see what that curriculum looks like now
Lived in this ancient river bed area most of my life, but my father told me some interesting stories about it. He worked at the Piketon Uranium Enrichment plant for 43 years where the Teays River Aquifer still runs underneath as an underground river. This plant has leached radioactive byproducts into this aquifer since 1953 and people north and west of Piketon still get their water from this aquifer. No one talks about this.
I work in Peebles, originally from Cincinnati. I won't drink the water there. Every single person who comes in has had cancer. And every single one of their family members have had cancer. They think it's from farms runoff with pesticides, but I always think that it's the water and it's from the plants
I work at a municipal water plant about an hour and a half west of Columbus. We get our city’s water out of the Teays, and there’s no radioactive material in the water there not naturally occurring. OEPA has us run yearly tests on our raw water supply so I would know. I’ve also heard from my boss that surface water takes almost 10,000 years to percolate down through the the bedrock and into the Teays, so unless that uranium plant is pumping their waste directly into the groundwater, there’s no way any of it has reached the Teays, nor will it for another 9,950 years.
@@harperrose5844whatever is causing all the cancer there is completely unrelated to the uranium plant in Piketon, as not only is Peebles not located above the Teays aquifer, but the OEPA also has every municipal water treatment plant in Ohio run regular analyses on their water sources for a variety of different hazardous contaminants. I know for a fact that radioactive material is one of them because I’ve seen the reports we get back from the lab.
South Point native here......Thank You for the post.....years ago I was told about this by a geologist as I was exploring springs on my property and nobody believed me. LOL
I live in Columbus now, about 45 min north of Chillicothe, but I grew up in Portsmouth, where the Scioto meets the Ohio. Driving south from Columbus, right as you get to Chillicothe the topography goes from flat, flat, flat to the foothills. It's really noticeable.
In the lobby of the main entrance door teays valley high school there's a rudimentary map of the teays River system made up of floor tiles, with a star to show where ashville is on it.
I went to Teays Valley schools until 2009, kind of guessed it immediately because that was the only place that ever talked about it. As a kid you're always skeptical of adults making things up until science comes in to validate it.
My last name is Seay, My whole life people pronounced it as “Say” this is the first time in 40 years I’ve seen a word that is spelt similar and pronounced differently, mine is pronounced See, I never understood how people could read my name as Say… until I read the word Teays… damn
I grew up in Circleville, around 20 miles north of Chillicothe. The Teays river was forced underground because of the glaciers and is still there, flowing to the northwest. Both DuPont and GE built manufacturing plants in Circleville in the 1950s because of the underground water sourced from the Teays River.. From the Teays River Wikipedia article: "The valley then disappears under glacial sediments but can be tracked using water well yields and other means (Hansen, 1995). A total of seven tills have been identified within the Teays River Valley (Andrews, 2004). In portions of Ohio, the buried valley is up to 2 miles (3.2 km) wide and lies beneath 500 feet (150 m) of glacial sediments (Hansen, 1995).[4] ...From Chillicothe, the Teays Valley can be traced in a northwesterly direction past Andersonville, crossing the southwestern part of Pickaway County, past Atlanta. From there, it crosses the northeast corner of Fayette County near Waterloo, extending in a northwesterly direction past London in Madison County, to South Vienna in Clark County. Here the Teays was joined by the Groveport River, which drained central Ohio. From South Vienna, the Teays River continues in a westerly direction, to a point near Springfield, in Clark County, and thence northwestward past Boulusville and St. Paris in Champaign County, and Sidney, Anna and Botkins, in Shelby County, to the southeastern part of Washington Township in Auglaize County, where it was joined from the north by a tributary, Wapakoneta Creek. The Teays continued its course westward past the village of Mercer to Rockford. Continuing west to the Ohio-Indiana state line in Mercer County.[3]" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teays_River The river eventually flows into Illinois and into the Illinois River valley.
The night sky in Circleville must have been incredible! A few months ago I was looking for locations with minimal light pollution, and Circleville just happened to be the closest area to me with Bortle class 2 skies (I live in Frederick County, MD for reference).
I live in New Knoxville, Washington Township, Auglaize County. You are correct about the course of the Teays. We get our drinking water from the aquifer of the Teays on its way to Ft. Wayne IN. The unique history of your hometown, Circleville, would take more than one video. What is now Grand Lake St Marys was a big swamp when General Anthony Wayne marched through in 1795. Half the water went to the Lake Erie watershed, and the rest down the Wabash to the Mississippi River.
This is neat. I live in Clark and never knew this I did know there’s a big cave system that’s not talked about that’s near George Roger’s just outside of Springfield.
I figured it would be from glacial action as I'm aware of other places with similar conditions, like a buried canyon near Niagara Falls, and re-routed rivers due to glacial terrains in New England.
Another thing interesting about the ancient Teays valley is that at one point in time the mighty Teays river was really a mighty river larger than the Ohio river. Also the Teays river is the most ancient river in North America that started flowing several hundred millions of years ago. The upper reaches of the head waters start in North Carolina and flow north by northwest through Virginia and then West Virginia where it empties into the Ohio river today. It's called the Kanawha river today but this river from it's source in North Carolina through Virginia and West Virginia is still part of the upper reaches of the ancient Teays river and is still the unchanged original valley of this part of the Teays river from over 300,000,000 years ago making it one of the top 5 oldest ancient river valleys in the world
This is one of the coolest things I've seen on youtube this year. I live in Ohio. You prompted me to take an all day trip down to Southern Ohio to scope out this ghost river valley. I want to go back to explore more! Thanks.
That's really cool - making it even cooler is the fact I just drove through Chillicothe and Portsmouth the day after you released the video...just seeing the video 5 days later through. I don't think many realize how hilly southern Ohio really is as compared to where I am, which is north of the Dayton area which is all quite flat and used for agricultural purposes. It's almost like you are in two completely different worlds. Great video and good explanations!
I was born raised in Cincinnati. I was always curious about the geography of the whole area, including Kentucky. Could you do a video on the Ohio Valley in general? Another good idea would be the Red River Gourge area in southern Kentucky. Really enjoyed the video. Thank you, sir.
I am from Ohio as well. Check into what covered Norwood Ohio area. I grew up there in the 60’s. Remembering as a child we would always find gray clay Everywhere in that town. This clay was great for molding things and we used it often to make even fun little toys. They had a brick factory in Norwood back in 1800’s that I believe used this clay as well. I was told by a science teacher that the clay was sediment from ancient lake or river that had flowed through the valley that the Town now resides. We also aways found fossilized fish and shells in embedded within the clay and shale. very interesting. Interesting place to grow up.
@@Freebird_67 It's hard to find a lot of info on line, but the way I understand it the Ohio River turned north and flowed up what is now the Little Miami Valley then turn west more or less across Norwood, then flowed north up what is now the Mill Creek Valley at least as far as Hamilton, where it then flowed south in the wide channel that is now the Great Miami. The stretch of the Ohio between the two Miamis - where downtown Cincinnati lies - is the youngest and narrowest stretch of the Ohio, and because it was narrow it was the perfect spot to build a settlement 200+ years ago. The same "ghost river" valleys can be seen in google earth images of the two Miami Rivers. The land across Norwood has raised considerably. Duck Creek - my own personal project is devoted to the road that bears that name - is a geologically "new" creek whose headwaters are someplace in Evanston, and it flows along old Duck Creek Road, Red Bank Road, Wooster Pike, and into the Little Miami a bit north of Lunken Airport. Anyway, I've been fascinated by pre-glacial Cincinnati ever since we studied it in the 5th grade, and just touched on "what used to be" enough to get my attention.
Hello, I was born and raised in Highland County Ohio, and now in Auglaize County. I stumbled upon this Channel seeing it was about southern Ohio, and I love it, learned a lot. I will start a daily visit to Your past posts until I am all caught up. From the time I was young (now 62) every time we would go east, My Grandfather would tell us about the Glacier Valley area in detail, then I was bored, but as time goes by I sure do miss that Man. And a Big Thank You for rekindling those memories, and I look forward to watching Your Past Videos. Chris.
@@TheGeoModels im in Houston, TX area but grew up in Columbus and lived in Morgantown WV and Weirton WV for a bit. also lived in Lancaster OH. thx for the vid!
Up in western NY, Olean has a little river coming into it: the Ischua. It’s only about 20-25 miles from Lake Erie and now flows to the Allegheny river, to the Ohio. Full directional reverse due to the glacier action. There are hills in New York where rain falls on one side that hits the Gulf of Mexico, and on the other, the Saint Lawrence.
I was raised in WNY and loved learning about glaciation and how much it shaped the geography up there. We lived in an area with a significant number of drumlins.
@@mpetersen6 it shows to me how in the big picture, 3 of the Great Lakes will only be temporary. 3 inches of erosion per year at the horse shoe falls. 5-6 thousand years from now, Lake Erie will have the falls wash out. Then Superior and Ontario will be it.
@@tarnocdoino3857 Michigan and Huron will not entirely drain. Michigan is over 900 ft deep and Huron is around 560 iirc. Average depths less than that but remember. The mud puddle of Lake St Claire is between Huron and Erie. But the next Glacial Advance will likely change the Great Lakes entirely. Erie could wind up getting filled with glacial till.
I've lived twice in the Teays Valley; born and raised in London OH, and lived for a while in Scott Depot WV, which is just west of Hurricane, mentioned in the vid. BTW, gorges are gorgeous! If one travels west on I-64 from Charleston WV, you will cross the northward flowing Kanawha (kah-NAH-wah) River at Nitro. As you cross, you can see the wide crescent of the Teays Valley above and ahead of you.
What a connection! I went to Johnathan Alder (technically Plain City), but left before my senior year and was relocated to Hurricane, WV, as my step-dad is from Nitro. Missed the plains and struggled with the change, but found a great love for the people and terrain in The Valley. Not much better than putting on the New and letting all your worries float on by. Merrily, merrily, merrily......
I have been telling this story for years. I live in Charleston WV and would visit family in Columbus Ohio in my youth. I could see this in the land features as soon as we entered Chillicothe Oh. When I grew up I noticed terraces on some property in Mason County WV. I started to put 2 and 2 together and come up with that these are beaches and the lakes water line. ....... Thank you for this video....... If you have anymore information about this area please make a video of it.
Your channel is one of my favorites! I recently learned of the Cap-au-Gres fault system. I think its the longest fault line in the Midwest -- from Iowa to Indiana and has the most notable line of displacement in the entire Mississippi valley. It also has a unique bow-shaped trending. Would you consider creating a video on this fault system? I never knew about it and would love to see if there's any lidar or other physical mapping available. Thanks so much!
I've done a lot of geologic research during my college years under a professor in Portsmouth at SSU. I've also published a few papers. I work at a professional geologist these days. You are on the right track. You are literally one of the only people that I've seen that has put something out there talking about this topic i researched for 3 years.
I agree. I'm from Chester WV and always had an interest in this. I can see how the sediments of Lake Monongahela would have given rise to the brickyards and potteries that once dominated the local economy, as they formed the clay deposits.
@@leehuff2330 Also how the glacier created Pittsburgh's "fourth river" which is a water source today for places like Beaver PA and the fountain in Pittsburgh.
@@kamX-rz4uy I was talking to one of the guys from our water department once, and he said that they traced the aquifer Chester draws water from all the way to Canada.
You should do a video on the Appalachian flood that happened towards the end of the Ice Age. It’s probably the second biggest flood that’s ever happened on earth.
Very interesting! I live in Steubenville and there is a rock face along route 7 that looks like an ancient lake, I wonder if it’s from the ice dam. 🤔 It’s about 200 feet higher than the river.
Definitly wasnt expecting ancient geography to pop up while i was getting ready for work but Im sure glad it did! Super interesting and well explained!
This reminds me of Cincinnati. You have the great Miami River valley on the west side of town connecting Hamilton. But if you look down the center of the city is a ghost valley with Mill Creek that practically meets back up with the Great Miami near Hamilton. The land between these two ghost valleys is what we know of as the whole west side. This would include Price Hill, Delhi, Miami Heights, Montfort Heights, Dunlap, Dry Ridge, Mount Airy, Fairmount and everything in between.
Fascinating! I've always been fascinated with topography like this. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania McConnell's Mill and the slippery rock creek area.
I enjoyed this and it is fascinating. Great job on pronouncing everything correctly btw. I'm from that area and if you talk to any Indian tribes from that area they can explain these waters so easily. They're our living history books.
I was thinking the same thing, I cross the Scioto and the Olentangy multiple times a day, and I've followed it down a few times. But I'm in the very beginning of the video, so I'm hoping for some clarification
While the modern Scioto does begin north of Columbus and flows south to the Ohio River, the section of the former Teays system it flows through ends in Chillicothe because of the limits of glacial advance. The Scioto actually flows in the opposite direction of the original Teays system, which flowed Northward.
I live in commercial point OH, The ancient Teays river (current day Teays aquifer) is where our village gets our municipal water. It is a major source of water for so much of the Midwest / Appalachia. I’ve tried to read several hydrogeology reports on this system trying to figure out more history on it but always seem to get overwhelmed and give up reading them haha. Cool to see a thorough TLDR of this river system, and how the glacial period affected it.
OMG!! That was all covered by water one time. That would have been so cool to have seen and tried to navigate all that. Thank you for showing us this. Things have changed so much.
Good to see all the southern Ohioans commenting here.. I grew up in the country near Chillicothe and Portsmouth.. Beautiful country.. We were not tought about the geology of the area.. I no longer live in the area and cannot explore things I would have when I was a teenager.I and my contemporaries was robbed of that as were our parents..That great earthquake in 1812 moved the mouth of the Scioto River 2 or 3 miles eastward.. It may have caused some of the anomalies you speak of.. So much was kept from us ''our history is not what we've been told''..
Thank you for this! Ive driven across this outwash area south of chilicothe so many times, and always wondered why the flood plain was so vast and massive, this is so cool!
I knew someone who lived on the eastern side of this near stockdale, before I knew what it was I thought it was strange, it’s like looking across a large lake but with no water.
Born and raised in the Teays River Valley area. Those smaller valley features you drew in there are where a lot of the roads and train tracks follow either back to the Teays River basin, the Scioto, or down to the Ohio. The Scioto River is the largest tributary to the Ohio River. So yeah, not real small, at least not down here in the southern half of the state. Also glad you mentioned the fertility of the land from the glaciers and rivers, but throw in the 40 inches of rain each year and you have fertile valleys the the English, French, US colonists, and native Americans fought quite extensively over. One interesting piece of trivia I learned over the years is that southern Ohio USED to be quite the small game bird hunting location until sometime in the 90s when they introduced the fox into the area which ended up wiping out those birds populations!
Lol strange story for you. I was in the Black Hills of South Dakota a few years ago. I sat down to speak with an elderly Siox Cheif he certainly knew how to pronounce Chillicothe. It warmed my heart.
I grew up in that exact area, literally in the debts of what was Lake Tight. Just southwest of Chillicothe. I knew the glaciers just stopped north of there, but I not idea about Lake Tight. That's so interesting, thanks for sharing.
This is an interesting find. I fly my paramotor there at an event, annually. Though I've seen those features from the air, I've never considered the reasons for those formations. This is a beautiful area to fly!
My family has owned a sizable track of land in West Virginia since i was old enough to remember. I spent lots of time exploring and hunting the area throughout my life. There is a consistent large outcrop of exposed sandstone a little over halfway up on the hills. I always wondered why it all had an appearance of being undercut by water, just like I'd see along the banks of creeks in the bottoms. I remember pointing it out to my father and asking him why it was like that. He said he also noticed it but had no idea. I later learned of the idea of glacial lakes reaching into the area. It made me wonder if i was seeing a result of water erosion from the shoreline of one of these ancient glacial lakes.
An excellent example of using modern technology to research ancient geological formations. Well presented sir. You have earned my like and sub. Looking forward to seeing more of your content. 😊
I had to make use of DEM (digital elevation model), SRTM (shuttle radar tomography mission) and LULC (land use/ land classification) imagery to do radio path analysis for the last 20 years. For the work aspect I was looking for high points for antenna towers and clear, low paths for radio-shots. I always enjoyed taking some extra time to play with the shader settings to find these hidden structures. I have all of north america on a 1 meter resolution (it's about two terabytes of data) and a couple of different ways of presenting these data. You can see ghostly rivers running across deserts and unusual structures in the plains of the midwest. Even such basic things as when humans built roads and piled up dirt and rock show up as raised areas that run for hundreds of miles. Zooming in I can even see the shapes of buildings of today and old buildings from a hundred to two hundred years ago. Sometimes I would get false-color data that shows differences in temperatures and I could spot the vent points of mines and caves (much colder) or hot-spots from the flare stack of some oil well out in Wyoming. I wish the treasure-pot of data that shows deeper scans (a few meters down) from longwave radar mapping was available to see past the first few meters of topsoil. I understand that is how some discoveries have been made of ancient civilizations in the Sahara.
I’m a native of this area, I live in kentucky at the bottoms of the Scioto river. If you come on the hills here on the kentucky side of the ohio river you can definitely see the Scioto side of this formation goes all the way to Chillicothe
I own a beautiful piece of property in Chillicothe that has rock outcroppings at higher elevations showing the old lake levels. Ive been a student on this subject my whole life. Thanks for the video.
Springfield Ohio the river goes underground and there was significant underground human activity and construction but it was gated off circa 1920 and most have forgotten it exists.
My wife's extended family lives in the Waverly area, which is in the now-Scioto River valley. I've always noticed that the landscape changes suddenly, right next to Chillicothe. I think about this every time we drive to her reunion. I have a minor interest in geology, and I know all about the glaciers, I've lived in Ohio for all of my 33 years. I didn't think really any of this was on RUclips!
When I hear Ancient River, I think of gold. Lol. I'm not a prospector or geologist but I was wondering since the glaciers came from Canada, could there possibly be any gold at the bottom of false bedrock or bedrock of that past river and do you have an idea maybe if there is worthwhile gold anywhere in Ohio. I'm from Ohio and just love its history. I'll sub too, you're getting close to that milestone. Interesting stuff.
I am a prospector. Hence the reason I'm here. Yes there is gold, as well as many other gemstones. I'm always alone in my treks, would like to have a partner to split 50/50, if interested.. 😊
Could you, if not already, do a video about what shaped the underground red salt deposits (similar to the pink Himalayan salt) prevalent in the Kanawha valley of WV around Charleston. I grew up in Nitro on the Kanaha River and remember as a kid the city was putting in a new water and sewer lines on my street that ran parallel to the river and at about 16 ft below street level, it was nothing but white sugar sand way up here in the Appalachain mountains. Is this the level of the salt deposits from a very ancient sea or are the salt deposits even more ancient than the level of the white sand? I know before people had their western expansion that the red salt industry was a big deal for the Kanawha Valley around Charleston. It was released from the ground by deep bore holes that piped steam down to dissolve the salt and it came back up a cooler salt water that was evaporated on the surface, sacked/barreled and float3d off downriver on boats to the Ohio River and then down the Mississippi to the rest of the country. The salt bore hole technology used in the Kanawha Valley was the direct ancestor of and originally used in the first oil well drilling further north up towards PA and the rest of the world. It is a fascinating topic. In a way, oil wells in Saudi Arabia are a ditect result of the red salt drilling industry of the Kanawha Valley in WV.
Do you know much about the ancient Portsmouth earthworks along the Ohio River that supposedly resembled Atlantis' concentric rings? Randall Carlson talked about it in an old video and showed a picture from an old survey. Loojed absolutely fascinating but its supposedly all been destroyed or built over.
I live outside Portsmouth. Have you ever seen in the area (or anywhere else for that matter) a layer of what looks like sandstone that appears to have been cracked with iron in the cracks? It makes what looks like a laid stone floor. We uncovered it under 10± ft of dirt while dozing off an area. We stopped going down when we got to it.
Oh man, superposition is such a powerful tool for understanding geomorphology. Like the Susquehanna cutting through the Apps or how to properly understanding the deposition and placement of Carolina Bays. Really neat. Thanks again for such a thoughtful and well-presented topic. I love looking at LiDAR and trying to decipher these kinds of landforms. If you get the chance, please do investigate the "hidden" barchan dunes (among other things!) in the coastal plane of the mid-Atlantic. Fascinating stuff!
The Taeys connected to the Mississippi, but not at its current channel, rather near Peoria, IL. The Mississippi used to run through what is now the lower 2/3 of the Illinois River. The mouth of the Taeys is what we now call the Mackinaw River Valley.
The video mentions Lake Tight, which formed when the Teays River was dammed by the Wisconsinian glaciation. The spillover point that broke through and diverted the Ohio River to it's present course is at Anderson Ferry, just west of downtown Cincinnati. The Kentucky side of the River, near Bromley has huge undulations left by rock deposited as the ridge rapidly eroded.
Love it man! My geologic education comes entirely from Nick Zentner, with Myron, Shawn, et al filling in blanks. I took Lesemann's tunnel channel work very seriously having grown up on the Okanogan megajokhulhaups path at Brewster WA. Jerome's work changes the whole story for me. I see the megafloods as evolving and growing with the ice sheet emanating from a fixed vascular structure following (creating?) low mountain passes, fed by subglacial great lakes primarily in the central Canadian plains, Okanogan Highlands, Salish Sea, L Michigan, et al. NSIDC Greenland Ice Today 2012 shows the mechanism for these megajokhulhaups. MWP 1A was a result of albedo decrease due to anthropogenic atmospheric particulate I speculate. There is no ice core evidence for this because it melted off. I did find extreme heavy metal spikes in Nile Delta drill cores at 14 ka and younger in a curved sense (MEDIBA Nile Delta core sample pdf).
Can you refer me to other major river delta core sample studies? The Mississippi, Boyne (Ireland), Indus, Amazon, Ganges, Mekong, and Yangtze are of primary interest to me.
15:33 you failed to note that one of the reasons the river flowed up north was that the Laurentide ice sheet was so heavy that it depressed the continental crust up north. This made the northerly flow easier, if not entirely possible as a chief factor.
The ancient Teays river still flows underground and it is a great fresh water source for us. Our wells flow well because of this phenomenon. It is a major driver of our livestock farming economy in west central Ohio.
As a native West Virginian, I'm proud to have someone on a national platform pronounce all of our names correctly. Most surprising was Hurricane but Kanawha was impressive too.
I'm from Ohio just north of this area near Columbus. You forgot to mention that the ancient Teays valley can actually be traced directly west of Chillicothe through the present day Paint Creek valley where it empties into the Scioto river right at Chillicothe. The unsual thing about this area is the Paint Creek flows directly into the hills around Chillicothe which is the ancient Teays valley here where it flowed millions of years ago in the reverse of Paint Creek today. If you follow Paint Creek today you will be directly above the ancient Teays valley buried hundreds of feet under thick layers of glacial gravel where the modern Paint creek follows through Madison county directly west of Columbus and from there it can be traced going west through the Springfield area and on further west out into Indiana
I’ve heard that the Appalachian Mountains were created with the formation of the continent Pangea, long before the Atlantic separation, and at one time were taller than the Himalayas. They probably had glaciers, and lots of rivers. River valleys long gone and lost to time. It’s amazing how the effects of time, water and wind combine to alter the landscape over millions of years.
Growing up in Northeast Ohio as soon as you started talking about elevated ghost river valleys... I said to myself.. Oh yea glaciers probably did that lol
I've been there many times and the area is fascinating. From the pyramids to the hills elevations change all the way to west Virginia it's awe inspiring. You can tell that something massive happened there long ago if you can visualize
The scioto river is not small at all. It's smaller than the ohio river but as far as all the rivers I've ever seen in my life I would say it's a little bit bigger than average making the ohio big and the Mississippi huge
OK, I was a bit disappointed that you weren't referring to the Great Miami because I know it had so old channels. Maybe you can cover that some time? It looked like the pre glacial Monongahela flowed where the northern Wabash is today. Is it possible that the Wabash is the modern incarnation of that pre-glacial channel? I understand that the Miami and tributaries are U shaped valleys filled with deep beds of gravel from glacial drift.
Thank you for this video. I also live in this area. I noticed this feature 20 years ago because of my job, architect. Our firm has built 2 schools on this sediment material. The soil which is nicknamed "gumbo" would not support the buildings. Pilings had to be driven down or auger cast to the solid material. The buildings are actually supported on stilts, lol. I have noticed these "valleys" or "fingers" near South Webster and in Vernon township. I assume they are the result of that massive lake draining.
As someone who grew up not far from Teay’s Valley and lived in southern OH for a while, it was beautiful to learn more about the area. I’m impressed that you pronounced Scioto correctly. I butchered it when i was first living in the area
Awesome channel! Cumberland MD native, lived from charleston to morgantown on 79 working, the content is dense here, lots of cool stuff if your trying to understand what makes these mountains truely wild and wonderful
That would have been an interesting PhD. I fly in and out of Alaska every month and you can see the active effect of glaciers on the land. So interesting to apply it to the ancient landscape.
Ive lived in the greater ohio river valley (WV) my whole life and just recently learned that the Teays/Kanawha/New River watershed is the 2nd oldest river system in the world. Even older than the Nile! The original New River river bed lies like 300-500 ft below the current one.
@@Scofari probably mostly silt from the floods of multiple ice age melts. The Appalachian mountains are very old and used to be very tall, as high as the Himalayas. Over time they eroded down so all that dirt is what has filled in the valleys.
After reading Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, i Google mapped the Mississippi all the way to the Gulf and saw how she kept moving, to the point of the bordering States gave up on matching their boundaries to it! A great read, and Twain had a great life! Thanks for posting!!
Instant subscribe! The way things are explained, the humor, some of them pronunciations. 👍☺️ I'm from near some of these tail waters and it's nice seeing local mentioned and the past shown and appreciated.
Another great video. This is a fascinating story that I went down a significant wormhole getting into the literature on a few years ago. I really enjoy the range of topics on your channel (although there is a definite center of gravity around geomorphology/landscape evolution) and the fact that you are not afraid to get into the weeds on some of these topics, as well as the fact that you bring to light geological stories that are less-known and under the radar.
I'm a Utah transplant born and raised in Chillicothe, OH. It's incredible to me how many people out west don't know about the rich geography and even richer history of the Ohio/Kentucky/Indiana region. These river systems were the lifeblood of the Hopewell and Adena cultures.
Haha right? Utahns are spoiled. Their geology is ab open book that even an amateur can read quite clearly.
I am happy I stumbled upon this video. Gunna do some deep diving into this topic. (Utah native who lived in NW Ohio and western PA for a couple of years :)
@@bheer98 Born in Oregon, but lived the longest in Central Illinois. Very flat there except by the Illinois River, Mackinaw etc. Lived in Phoenix 1984-1985 for almost a year then moved to Virginia Beach for 3 years. Back to Illinois from 1988 till 2024. Now we live in Lucasville Ohio to be closer to Daughter and Husband who live near Wheelersburg. I like it here ! Very very different than Illinois in topography and culture ! Have been exploring different back roads and noticed the river valleys and valleys without rivers on Google maps. The Scioto river is about 4 miles from our house.
Yes. With native people's earthworks scattered around the area. Chillicothe was also Ohio's first capital.
Chillicothe OH has the best dirt track Atomic speedway (it was K-C raceway to me growing up) a 3/8 mile with jaw dropping banking makes it faster than are 1/4 mile here lol omits my kids favorite track also
What amazes me even more is the the Ohio River is actually a continuation of the Monongahela River and not a separate river in itself. Hopefully this error will be corrected and then since the Mississippi River receives most of its water from the Mon it's name will be corrected too.
I live about 20 minutes from the southern end of this and have been looking at it on satellite images for years wondering what it was.
Sounds like you better hop in a car and tell us all about it!
According to NASA, the poles of earth have reversed 183 times in the last 83 million years, and at least several hundred times in the past 160 million years. North America in ancient times was referred to by humanity as "turtle island" because it randomly would sink beneath the water and reemerge. This would include glaciation event's as well. Pre-recorded humanity has been traced back roughly four billion years, and recorded human history goes back to roughly three hundred thousand years. So these are just ancient water ways, even at higher altitudes as the magnetic poles changed and water displaced along the Earth's surface.
@@duelde-consulting6403. NASA is nothing but another branch of the gov. And everything the Gov. Claims to know is complete BS.
@@duelde-consulting6403 Funny.
@duelde-consulting6403 NASA 😂
Thats the ancient teays river! Always been amazed by that growing up in Huntington. Kudos for getting all the names pronounced correctly 🎉
I used to live in Hurricane (WV) and Teay's Valley...
Huntington people!
You can see how the ancient Teays flows underground in my region-Fort Wayne, Indiana through Western Ohio, close to US 30 before it heads south and east. The topography of the land is as a joined valley.
@@middletnpyro I have a lot of cousins in Huntington beautiful there - Browning is my cousins -Chris
Love seeing all you all here, I’m in greater Huntington area, born n raised.
As a person from the area: *He says all the names right*. I'm officially impressed haha
X2
You are right.
I have heard the Scioto river called the 'skeetoe" river.
I am originally from Columbus.
@@johnkingery403 I am from Columbus also; you probably remember the other river with the name that people mispronounce - the Olentangy, which merges with the Scioto river near downtown Columbus.
See oh toe. Lol. I live in burg. If you're from anywhere near where he's talking about then you know.
@@hankclay1376 Ah, the good ol' Old and Tangy lol
As someone from the Southern Ohio area, and grew up near Portsmouth. This answered very old questions I’ve had my entire life. Driving up and down these valleys I would always ask myself “what massive rivers flowed here?” This was really cool!
Just remember GOD doesn't make mistakes.
@@carlmorgan8452 what would you call Satan?
@@SubvertTheStatea test
I finally made it to your racetrack Portsmouth speedway awesome place me and the kids loved it
@@ifensler Wouldn't that make our lives a game?
(I'm a follower of Christ; just wondering where this egocentric logic goes)
I was born and raised here in Chillicothe Ohio I am 47 years old and this video is very interesting and informative. It validates all the stories we were told about why just north of the town it gets flat and stays that way. I’ve always wondered why some of the valleys around here are so deep, I own property here and have done a lot of hunting and hiking. But this new knowledge is awesome it will be remembered and passed on thank you.
Didn't you stay out Vigo in late 90s?
Chilli billy
My dad actually works at a paper mill in Chillicothe and it was built there because of a MASSIVE water reservoir underneath the town. Super cool video!
When I was a kid, the smell of Mead Paper was so bad, if I was asleep, I'd wake up and know we were in Chillicothe. It stunk so bad. I was so glad when the EPA started regulating the pollution.
@@laurabrooks7655 let me tell you it hasn’t changed 😂
Maybe I’m just not as sensitive to it now, but I went right past the paper mill a couple weeks ago and it smelled, but not as bad as I remember the entire town smelling 15-20 years ago, so I think it’s gotten better maybe
You could smell it from HILLSBORO. Which is west of Chili and against the prevailing winds. 🤮@@laurabrooks7655
The paper mill is one of the reasons I don't want to move further south to Chillicothe. Just shopping when the wind is blowing the wrong direction is painfully smelly. Otherwise I really like the town.
I never see any young people that know about the 5 glaciers that covered North America and elsewhere. 3 of the 5 glaciers made it down to Ohio. I grew up in the Unglaciated area of Wisconsin, maybe that is why I learned it in 5th grade. Very good video, thank you Sir.
Right, its so amazing to think about NA being covered. Heck, Long Island sound as it is today did'nt exist. LIS could of been a lake if not for glaciar's
My immediate thought was the rebound from glacial pressures lol
Some folks know. But it's not something I was taught about in school ever. But we've also learned a lot so hopefully the younger kids are being taught some of it.
And all done without the help of "green sustainability initiatives"! 😐
i think it's just the curriculum in the school system here to learn about the glaciers because of how important it is to the state's geography
I don't know what you count as young people (I guess I get older every year, right?) but I did learn about the glaciers and other geological and archeological features of ancient Ohio around 5th-8th grade in the mid '00s. It was a big part of the state wide standardized testing at the time. I'm curious to see what that curriculum looks like now
Lived in this ancient river bed area most of my life, but my father told me some interesting stories about it.
He worked at the Piketon Uranium Enrichment plant for 43 years where the Teays River Aquifer still runs underneath as an underground river. This plant has leached radioactive byproducts into this aquifer since 1953 and people north and west of Piketon still get their water from this aquifer.
No one talks about this.
🤫
I work in Peebles, originally from Cincinnati. I won't drink the water there. Every single person who comes in has had cancer. And every single one of their family members have had cancer. They think it's from farms runoff with pesticides, but I always think that it's the water and it's from the plants
@@harperrose5844 Anecdotal and clearly hyperbole.
I work at a municipal water plant about an hour and a half west of Columbus. We get our city’s water out of the Teays, and there’s no radioactive material in the water there not naturally occurring. OEPA has us run yearly tests on our raw water supply so I would know. I’ve also heard from my boss that surface water takes almost 10,000 years to percolate down through the the bedrock and into the Teays, so unless that uranium plant is pumping their waste directly into the groundwater, there’s no way any of it has reached the Teays, nor will it for another 9,950 years.
@@harperrose5844whatever is causing all the cancer there is completely unrelated to the uranium plant in Piketon, as not only is Peebles not located above the Teays aquifer, but the OEPA also has every municipal water treatment plant in Ohio run regular analyses on their water sources for a variety of different hazardous contaminants. I know for a fact that radioactive material is one of them because I’ve seen the reports we get back from the lab.
Growing up in Chillicothe, the change in terrain is noticeable as soon as you go north.
@@sonofsarek that's for sure. You can't get more on the borders of Appalachia than that
I like to draw along with you in the drawing part. It's like a more technical Bob Ross show. Happy little elevations.
Smart! 🧠
South Point native here......Thank You for the post.....years ago I was told about this by a geologist as I was exploring springs on my property and nobody believed me. LOL
I live in Columbus now, about 45 min north of Chillicothe, but I grew up in Portsmouth, where the Scioto meets the Ohio.
Driving south from Columbus, right as you get to Chillicothe the topography goes from flat, flat, flat to the foothills. It's really noticeable.
Teays Valley High School is near Ashville, OH.
Thank you for featuring a neat piece of geological history in my backyard.
My aunt and uncle live in Ashville, OH. My cousin and his daughters all went to Teays Valley. Never knew what it referred to until now.
In the lobby of the main entrance door teays valley high school there's a rudimentary map of the teays River system made up of floor tiles, with a star to show where ashville is on it.
I went to Teays Valley schools until 2009, kind of guessed it immediately because that was the only place that ever talked about it. As a kid you're always skeptical of adults making things up until science comes in to validate it.
Been a long time since i've read or heard anything about river Teays - thanks!
One can legitimately argue it made much of Appalachia what it is today!
My last name is Seay,
My whole life people pronounced it as “Say” this is the first time in 40 years I’ve seen a word that is spelt similar and pronounced differently, mine is pronounced See, I never understood how people could read my name as Say… until I read the word Teays… damn
I grew up in Circleville, around 20 miles north of Chillicothe. The Teays river was forced underground because of the glaciers and is still there, flowing to the northwest. Both DuPont and GE built manufacturing plants in Circleville in the 1950s because of the underground water sourced from the Teays River.. From the Teays River Wikipedia article: "The valley then disappears under glacial sediments but can be tracked using water well yields and other means (Hansen, 1995). A total of seven tills have been identified within the Teays River Valley (Andrews, 2004). In portions of Ohio, the buried valley is up to 2 miles (3.2 km) wide and lies beneath 500 feet (150 m) of glacial sediments (Hansen, 1995).[4] ...From Chillicothe, the Teays Valley can be traced in a northwesterly direction past Andersonville, crossing the southwestern part of Pickaway County, past Atlanta. From there, it crosses the northeast corner of Fayette County near Waterloo, extending in a northwesterly direction past London in Madison County, to South Vienna in Clark County. Here the Teays was joined by the Groveport River, which drained central Ohio. From South Vienna, the Teays River continues in a westerly direction, to a point near Springfield, in Clark County, and thence northwestward past Boulusville and St. Paris in Champaign County, and Sidney, Anna and Botkins, in Shelby County, to the southeastern part of Washington Township in Auglaize County, where it was joined from the north by a tributary, Wapakoneta Creek. The Teays continued its course westward past the village of Mercer to Rockford. Continuing west to the Ohio-Indiana state line in Mercer County.[3]" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teays_River The river eventually flows into Illinois and into the Illinois River valley.
The night sky in Circleville must have been incredible! A few months ago I was looking for locations with minimal light pollution, and Circleville just happened to be the closest area to me with Bortle class 2 skies (I live in Frederick County, MD for reference).
I live in New Knoxville, Washington Township, Auglaize County. You are correct about the course of the Teays. We get our drinking water from the aquifer of the Teays on its way to Ft. Wayne IN. The unique history of your hometown, Circleville, would take more than one video. What is now Grand Lake St Marys was a big swamp when General Anthony Wayne marched through in 1795. Half the water went to the Lake Erie watershed, and the rest down the Wabash to the Mississippi River.
This is neat. I live in Clark and never knew this
I did know there’s a big cave system that’s not talked about that’s near George Roger’s just outside of Springfield.
I figured it would be from glacial action as I'm aware of other places with similar conditions, like a buried canyon near Niagara Falls, and re-routed rivers due to glacial terrains in New England.
Another thing interesting about the ancient Teays valley is that at one point in time the mighty Teays river was really a mighty river larger than the Ohio river. Also the Teays river is the most ancient river in North America that started flowing several hundred millions of years ago. The upper reaches of the head waters start in North Carolina and flow north by northwest through Virginia and then West Virginia where it empties into the Ohio river today. It's called the Kanawha river today but this river from it's source in North Carolina through Virginia and West Virginia is still part of the upper reaches of the ancient Teays river and is still the unchanged original valley of this part of the Teays river from over 300,000,000 years ago making it one of the top 5 oldest ancient river valleys in the world
This is one of the coolest things I've seen on youtube this year. I live in Ohio. You prompted me to take an all day trip down to Southern Ohio to scope out this ghost river valley. I want to go back to explore more! Thanks.
That's really cool - making it even cooler is the fact I just drove through Chillicothe and Portsmouth the day after you released the video...just seeing the video 5 days later through. I don't think many realize how hilly southern Ohio really is as compared to where I am, which is north of the Dayton area which is all quite flat and used for agricultural purposes. It's almost like you are in two completely different worlds. Great video and good explanations!
I was born raised in Cincinnati. I was always curious about the geography of the whole area, including Kentucky. Could you do a video on the Ohio Valley in general? Another good idea would be the Red River Gourge area in southern Kentucky. Really enjoyed the video. Thank you, sir.
I am from Ohio as well. Check into what covered Norwood Ohio area. I grew up there in the 60’s. Remembering as a child we would always find gray clay Everywhere in that town. This clay was great for molding things and we used it often to make even fun little toys. They had a brick factory in Norwood back in 1800’s that I believe used this clay as well.
I was told by a science teacher that the clay was sediment from ancient lake or river that had flowed through the valley that the Town now resides. We also aways found fossilized fish and shells in embedded within the clay and shale. very interesting. Interesting place to grow up.
@@Freebird_67 It's hard to find a lot of info on line, but the way I understand it the Ohio River turned north and flowed up what is now the Little Miami Valley then turn west more or less across Norwood, then flowed north up what is now the Mill Creek Valley at least as far as Hamilton, where it then flowed south in the wide channel that is now the Great Miami. The stretch of the Ohio between the two Miamis - where downtown Cincinnati lies - is the youngest and narrowest stretch of the Ohio, and because it was narrow it was the perfect spot to build a settlement 200+ years ago. The same "ghost river" valleys can be seen in google earth images of the two Miami Rivers. The land across Norwood has raised considerably. Duck Creek - my own personal project is devoted to the road that bears that name - is a geologically "new" creek whose headwaters are someplace in Evanston, and it flows along old Duck Creek Road, Red Bank Road, Wooster Pike, and into the Little Miami a bit north of Lunken Airport. Anyway, I've been fascinated by pre-glacial Cincinnati ever since we studied it in the 5th grade, and just touched on "what used to be" enough to get my attention.
Hello, I was born and raised in Highland County Ohio, and now in Auglaize County. I stumbled upon this Channel seeing it was about southern Ohio, and I love it, learned a lot. I will start a daily visit to Your past posts until I am all caught up. From the time I was young (now 62) every time we would go east, My Grandfather would tell us about the Glacier Valley area in detail, then I was bored, but as time goes by I sure do miss that Man. And a Big Thank You for rekindling those memories, and I look forward to watching Your Past Videos. Chris.
Thanks, and very glad you liked it!
This is excellent stuff! You are a treasure. A natural educator. I am 75 and you have taught me a lot. Thank you so much!
Glad you liked it!
75 and already brain dead with that profile picture ! 😂
@@toppermoore1925 Go away, punk!
@@toppermoore1925 I may be brain dead, but you need to grow up.
@@randallreed9048 Freak boomer
I live here. Drove a Greyhound to Ashland, Hurricane, Huntington and over the Kanawa to Charlestown. This was amazing.
Very cool. I'm happy some folks from the area are getting to watch it. You never know where the old RUclips algorithm will send it.
Huntington mentioned
@@TheGeoModels im in Houston, TX area but grew up in Columbus and lived in Morgantown WV and Weirton WV for a bit. also lived in Lancaster OH. thx for the vid!
Up in western NY, Olean has a little river coming into it: the Ischua. It’s only about 20-25 miles from Lake Erie and now flows to the Allegheny river, to the Ohio. Full directional reverse due to the glacier action. There are hills in New York where rain falls on one side that hits the Gulf of Mexico, and on the other, the Saint Lawrence.
I was raised in WNY and loved learning about glaciation and how much it shaped the geography up there. We lived in an area with a significant number of drumlins.
In SE Wisconsin the divide between the St Lawrence River watershed and the Mississippi is only about three miles from Lake Michigan in spots.
@@mpetersen6 it shows to me how in the big picture, 3 of the Great Lakes will only be temporary. 3 inches of erosion per year at the horse shoe falls. 5-6 thousand years from now, Lake Erie will have the falls wash out. Then Superior and Ontario will be it.
@@tarnocdoino3857 Michigan and Huron will not entirely drain. Michigan is over 900 ft deep and Huron is around 560 iirc. Average depths less than that but remember. The mud puddle of Lake St Claire is between Huron and Erie.
But the next Glacial Advance will likely change the Great Lakes entirely. Erie could wind up getting filled with glacial till.
Ischua Creek - nice little trout stream
I've lived twice in the Teays Valley; born and raised in London OH, and lived for a while in Scott Depot WV, which is just west of Hurricane, mentioned in the vid.
BTW, gorges are gorgeous! If one travels west on I-64 from Charleston WV, you will cross the northward flowing Kanawha (kah-NAH-wah) River at Nitro. As you cross, you can see the wide crescent of the Teays Valley above and ahead of you.
When your stuck in traffic on i64 you have plenty of time to look at it..
@@ro307805 Unless you're stuck on I-64 in a downpour of mixed sleet and rain. Then, it's just a gray blur.
What a connection! I went to Johnathan Alder (technically Plain City), but left before my senior year and was relocated to Hurricane, WV, as my step-dad is from Nitro. Missed the plains and struggled with the change, but found a great love for the people and terrain in The Valley. Not much better than putting on the New and letting all your worries float on by. Merrily, merrily, merrily......
Yes, I used to live in Charleston and have been thru that route West a lot.
I have something to add to this great video, on the ohio state seal its image is of Chillicothe landscape.
Also it was the first Ohio State Capital.
There is Great Seal State Park there now.
I have been telling this story for years. I live in Charleston WV and would visit family in Columbus Ohio in my youth. I could see this in the land features as soon as we entered Chillicothe Oh. When I grew up I noticed terraces on some property in Mason County WV. I started to put 2 and 2 together and come up with that these are beaches and the lakes water line. ....... Thank you for this video....... If you have anymore information about this area please make a video of it.
Your channel is one of my favorites! I recently learned of the Cap-au-Gres fault system. I think its the longest fault line in the Midwest -- from Iowa to Indiana and has the most notable line of displacement in the entire Mississippi valley. It also has a unique bow-shaped trending. Would you consider creating a video on this fault system? I never knew about it and would love to see if there's any lidar or other physical mapping available. Thanks so much!
Agreed
I've done a lot of geologic research during my college years under a professor in Portsmouth at SSU. I've also published a few papers. I work at a professional geologist these days. You are on the right track. You are literally one of the only people that I've seen that has put something out there talking about this topic i researched for 3 years.
I also went to SSU, but graduated before this became a hot topic to study. I miss the epic field trips.
Thank you for this! I'm so glad the algorithm threw your channel my way. I've never really thought much about how the changes actually happen.
Agreed
Neat. Can you do a video on the glaciation of NW Pennsylvania and NE Ohio? There’s lots of cool little things in the area
I agree. I'm from Chester WV and always had an interest in this. I can see how the sediments of Lake Monongahela would have given rise to the brickyards and potteries that once dominated the local economy, as they formed the clay deposits.
@@leehuff2330 Also how the glacier created Pittsburgh's "fourth river" which is a water source today for places like Beaver PA and the fountain in Pittsburgh.
@@kamX-rz4uy
I was talking to one of the guys from our water department once, and he said that they traced the aquifer Chester draws water from all the way to Canada.
You should do a video on the Appalachian flood that happened towards the end of the Ice Age. It’s probably the second biggest flood that’s ever happened on earth.
Randall carlson... it's happend a few times
Interesting,would like to see presentation from Indiana. Indian-Kentuck and Clifty creeks area has always been fascinating to me.
After the deluge of course…
(I‘m joking.)
Very interesting! I live in Steubenville and there is a rock face along route 7 that looks like an ancient lake, I wonder if it’s from the ice dam. 🤔 It’s about 200 feet higher than the river.
They built the Porsmouth Bypass along that valley. Thanks for shortening my trip to Columbus from Ashland, KY!
Definitly wasnt expecting ancient geography to pop up while i was getting ready for work but Im sure glad it did! Super interesting and well explained!
@18:00, you actually have the updated map with SR 823…that road may barely be 10 years old at this point.
Well done!
This reminds me of Cincinnati. You have the great Miami River valley on the west side of town connecting Hamilton. But if you look down the center of the city is a ghost valley with Mill Creek that practically meets back up with the Great Miami near Hamilton. The land between these two ghost valleys is what we know of as the whole west side. This would include Price Hill, Delhi, Miami Heights, Montfort Heights, Dunlap, Dry Ridge, Mount Airy, Fairmount and everything in between.
Fascinating! I've always been fascinated with topography like this. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania McConnell's Mill and the slippery rock creek area.
I enjoyed this and it is fascinating. Great job on pronouncing everything correctly btw. I'm from that area and if you talk to any Indian tribes from that area they can explain these waters so easily. They're our living history books.
The Scioto River does not end in Chillicothe. It travels up north passing Columbus.
I was thinking the same thing, I cross the Scioto and the Olentangy multiple times a day, and I've followed it down a few times. But I'm in the very beginning of the video, so I'm hoping for some clarification
Now I’m at the beginning of the video. Did you get your clarification? I hope so.
Scioto runs from just north of Indian lake, a little north of Dayton.
While the modern Scioto does begin north of Columbus and flows south to the Ohio River, the section of the former Teays system it flows through ends in Chillicothe because of the limits of glacial advance. The Scioto actually flows in the opposite direction of the original Teays system, which flowed Northward.
@@kevinfinn9599(O)(o)
I live in commercial point OH, The ancient Teays river (current day Teays aquifer) is where our village gets our municipal water. It is a major source of water for so much of the Midwest / Appalachia. I’ve tried to read several hydrogeology reports on this system trying to figure out more history on it but always seem to get overwhelmed and give up reading them haha. Cool to see a thorough TLDR of this river system, and how the glacial period affected it.
OMG!! That was all covered by water one time. That would have been so cool to have seen and tried to navigate all that. Thank you for showing us this. Things have changed so much.
This was really cool to see and have someone speak in depth about. Thank you so much! This place is very special to me.
Good to see all the southern Ohioans commenting here.. I grew up in the country near Chillicothe and Portsmouth.. Beautiful country.. We were not tought about the geology of the area.. I no longer live in the area and cannot explore things I would have when I was a teenager.I and my contemporaries was robbed of that as were our parents..That great earthquake in 1812 moved the mouth of the Scioto River 2 or 3 miles eastward.. It may have caused some of the anomalies you speak of.. So much was kept from us ''our history is not what we've been told''..
Thank you for this! Ive driven across this outwash area south of chilicothe so many times, and always wondered why the flood plain was so vast and massive, this is so cool!
I knew someone who lived on the eastern side of this near stockdale, before I knew what it was I thought it was strange, it’s like looking across a large lake but with no water.
All of this area is one big geological puzzle !! I watched how these mountains were formed im on the wva side . Just simply amazing ! Thank you !!
Born and raised in the Teays River Valley area. Those smaller valley features you drew in there are where a lot of the roads and train tracks follow either back to the Teays River basin, the Scioto, or down to the Ohio. The Scioto River is the largest tributary to the Ohio River. So yeah, not real small, at least not down here in the southern half of the state.
Also glad you mentioned the fertility of the land from the glaciers and rivers, but throw in the 40 inches of rain each year and you have fertile valleys the the English, French, US colonists, and native Americans fought quite extensively over.
One interesting piece of trivia I learned over the years is that southern Ohio USED to be quite the small game bird hunting location until sometime in the 90s when they introduced the fox into the area which ended up wiping out those birds populations!
I bayled hay near Stockdale. I never once thought i was in an ancient river bed. It makes sense now. Most interesting!
You made me smile. You are one of the few that can pronounce Chillicothe. Way to go.
Lol strange story for you. I was in the Black Hills of South Dakota a few years ago. I sat down to speak with an elderly Siox Cheif he certainly knew how to pronounce Chillicothe. It warmed my heart.
He also nailed Hurra-kun, WV as well. Most say Hurra-cane.
I grew up in that exact area, literally in the debts of what was Lake Tight. Just southwest of Chillicothe. I knew the glaciers just stopped north of there, but I not idea about Lake Tight. That's so interesting, thanks for sharing.
This is an interesting find. I fly my paramotor there at an event, annually. Though I've seen those features from the air, I've never considered the reasons for those formations. This is a beautiful area to fly!
It’s so cool to see actual interesting videos about geography where I live. Live from Huntington
My family has owned a sizable track of land in West Virginia since i was old enough to remember. I spent lots of time exploring and hunting the area throughout my life. There is a consistent large outcrop of exposed sandstone a little over halfway up on the hills. I always wondered why it all had an appearance of being undercut by water, just like I'd see along the banks of creeks in the bottoms. I remember pointing it out to my father and asking him why it was like that. He said he also noticed it but had no idea. I later learned of the idea of glacial lakes reaching into the area. It made me wonder if i was seeing a result of water erosion from the shoreline of one of these ancient glacial lakes.
An excellent example of using modern technology to research ancient geological formations. Well presented sir. You have earned my like and sub. Looking forward to seeing more of your content. 😊
I had to make use of DEM (digital elevation model), SRTM (shuttle radar tomography mission) and LULC (land use/ land classification) imagery to do radio path analysis for the last 20 years. For the work aspect I was looking for high points for antenna towers and clear, low paths for radio-shots. I always enjoyed taking some extra time to play with the shader settings to find these hidden structures.
I have all of north america on a 1 meter resolution (it's about two terabytes of data) and a couple of different ways of presenting these data. You can see ghostly rivers running across deserts and unusual structures in the plains of the midwest. Even such basic things as when humans built roads and piled up dirt and rock show up as raised areas that run for hundreds of miles. Zooming in I can even see the shapes of buildings of today and old buildings from a hundred to two hundred years ago.
Sometimes I would get false-color data that shows differences in temperatures and I could spot the vent points of mines and caves (much colder) or hot-spots from the flare stack of some oil well out in Wyoming.
I wish the treasure-pot of data that shows deeper scans (a few meters down) from longwave radar mapping was available to see past the first few meters of topsoil. I understand that is how some discoveries have been made of ancient civilizations in the Sahara.
I’m a native of this area, I live in kentucky at the bottoms of the Scioto river. If you come on the hills here on the kentucky side of the ohio river you can definitely see the Scioto side of this formation goes all the way to Chillicothe
My first visit to your channel -- very interesting. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge of how these landforms were produced.
Nice to know more about the town (Ashland) where we have our home since 1985.
this was immensely interesting. Thank you!
I own a beautiful piece of property in Chillicothe that has rock outcroppings at higher elevations showing the old lake levels. Ive been a student on this subject my whole life. Thanks for the video.
Springfield Ohio the river goes underground and there was significant underground human activity and construction but it was gated off circa 1920 and most have forgotten it exists.
My wife's extended family lives in the Waverly area, which is in the now-Scioto River valley. I've always noticed that the landscape changes suddenly, right next to Chillicothe. I think about this every time we drive to her reunion. I have a minor interest in geology, and I know all about the glaciers, I've lived in Ohio for all of my 33 years. I didn't think really any of this was on RUclips!
When I hear Ancient River, I think of gold. Lol. I'm not a prospector or geologist but I was wondering since the glaciers came from Canada, could there possibly be any gold at the bottom of false bedrock or bedrock of that past river and do you have an idea maybe if there is worthwhile gold anywhere in Ohio. I'm from Ohio and just love its history. I'll sub too, you're getting close to that milestone. Interesting stuff.
I am a prospector. Hence the reason I'm here. Yes there is gold, as well as many other gemstones. I'm always alone in my treks, would like to have a partner to split 50/50, if interested.. 😊
I'm from portsmouth and remember the river bottoms flooding alot almost every year before planting season.
Could you, if not already, do a video about what shaped the underground red salt deposits (similar to the pink Himalayan salt) prevalent in the Kanawha valley of WV around Charleston. I grew up in Nitro on the Kanaha River and remember as a kid the city was putting in a new water and sewer lines on my street that ran parallel to the river and at about 16 ft below street level, it was nothing but white sugar sand way up here in the Appalachain mountains. Is this the level of the salt deposits from a very ancient sea or are the salt deposits even more ancient than the level of the white sand?
I know before people had their western expansion that the red salt industry was a big deal for the Kanawha Valley around Charleston. It was released from the ground by deep bore holes that piped steam down to dissolve the salt and it came back up a cooler salt water that was evaporated on the surface, sacked/barreled and float3d off downriver on boats to the Ohio River and then down the Mississippi to the rest of the country.
The salt bore hole technology used in the Kanawha Valley was the direct ancestor of and originally used in the first oil well drilling further north up towards PA and the rest of the world. It is a fascinating topic. In a way, oil wells in Saudi Arabia are a ditect result of the red salt drilling industry of the Kanawha Valley in WV.
This popped up in my feed and looked interesting. Fascinating information and great visual aids. Well worth a full watch. Thank you.
im a geologist from portsmouth ohio in this area i never knew about this very cool
Do you know much about the ancient Portsmouth earthworks along the Ohio River that supposedly resembled Atlantis' concentric rings? Randall Carlson talked about it in an old video and showed a picture from an old survey. Loojed absolutely fascinating but its supposedly all been destroyed or built over.
I live outside Portsmouth. Have you ever seen in the area (or anywhere else for that matter) a layer of what looks like sandstone that appears to have been cracked with iron in the cracks? It makes what looks like a laid stone floor. We uncovered it under 10± ft of dirt while dozing off an area. We stopped going down when we got to it.
Oh man, superposition is such a powerful tool for understanding geomorphology. Like the Susquehanna cutting through the Apps or how to properly understanding the deposition and placement of Carolina Bays. Really neat. Thanks again for such a thoughtful and well-presented topic. I love looking at LiDAR and trying to decipher these kinds of landforms. If you get the chance, please do investigate the "hidden" barchan dunes (among other things!) in the coastal plane of the mid-Atlantic. Fascinating stuff!
The Taeys connected to the Mississippi, but not at its current channel, rather near Peoria, IL. The Mississippi used to run through what is now the lower 2/3 of the Illinois River. The mouth of the Taeys is what we now call the Mackinaw River Valley.
The video mentions Lake Tight, which formed when the Teays River was dammed by the Wisconsinian glaciation. The spillover point that broke through and diverted the Ohio River to it's present course is at Anderson Ferry, just west of downtown Cincinnati.
The Kentucky side of the River, near Bromley has huge undulations left by rock deposited as the ridge rapidly eroded.
Love it man!
My geologic education comes entirely from Nick Zentner, with Myron, Shawn, et al filling in blanks.
I took Lesemann's tunnel channel work very seriously having grown up on the Okanogan megajokhulhaups path at Brewster WA. Jerome's work changes the whole story for me. I see the megafloods as evolving and growing with the ice sheet emanating from a fixed vascular structure following (creating?) low mountain passes, fed by subglacial great lakes primarily in the central Canadian plains, Okanogan Highlands, Salish Sea, L Michigan, et al.
NSIDC Greenland Ice Today 2012 shows the mechanism for these megajokhulhaups.
MWP 1A was a result of albedo decrease due to anthropogenic atmospheric particulate I speculate. There is no ice core evidence for this because it melted off. I did find extreme heavy metal spikes in Nile Delta drill cores at 14 ka and younger in a curved sense (MEDIBA Nile Delta core sample pdf).
Can you refer me to other major river delta core sample studies? The Mississippi, Boyne (Ireland), Indus, Amazon, Ganges, Mekong, and Yangtze are of primary interest to me.
I almost jumped out of my seat when that ice-sheet swooped down. Another great video, thanks!
15:33 you failed to note that one of the reasons the river flowed up north was that the Laurentide ice sheet was so heavy that it depressed the continental crust up north. This made the northerly flow easier, if not entirely possible as a chief factor.
Fantastic video, feels like a college level lecture in the best way possible!
This is freaking awesome.
One of my favorites stories from the region!
@@TheGeoModels I live in Fayetteville NC. I moved here 2 years ago and I love to understand the geologic history of anywhere I move
My sentiments exactly. Well said .
The ancient Teays river still flows underground and it is a great fresh water source for us. Our wells flow well because of this phenomenon. It is a major driver of our livestock farming economy in west central Ohio.
I love knowledge like this, MORE PLEASE!!!
As a native West Virginian, I'm proud to have someone on a national platform pronounce all of our names correctly. Most surprising was Hurricane but Kanawha was impressive too.
I been around!
I'm from Ohio just north of this area near Columbus. You forgot to mention that the ancient Teays valley can actually be traced directly west of Chillicothe through the present day Paint Creek valley where it empties into the Scioto river right at Chillicothe. The unsual thing about this area is the Paint Creek flows directly into the hills around Chillicothe which is the ancient Teays valley here where it flowed millions of years ago in the reverse of Paint Creek today. If you follow Paint Creek today you will be directly above the ancient Teays valley buried hundreds of feet under thick layers of glacial gravel where the modern Paint creek follows through Madison county directly west of Columbus and from there it can be traced going west through the Springfield area and on further west out into Indiana
Yep, where the dark blue and light blue meet up at the top in the part showing the opposite flow directions. Cool spot!
I’ve heard that the Appalachian Mountains were created with the formation of the continent Pangea, long before the Atlantic separation, and at one time were taller than the Himalayas. They probably had glaciers, and lots of rivers. River valleys long gone and lost to time. It’s amazing how the effects of time, water and wind combine to alter the landscape over millions of years.
I just watched something about how the Appalachians are one of the most ancient places on earth. Very cool, I’d love to visit
Growing up in Northeast Ohio as soon as you started talking about elevated ghost river valleys... I said to myself.. Oh yea glaciers probably did that lol
Just started the video, and that was my thoughts
I've been there many times and the area is fascinating. From the pyramids to the hills elevations change all the way to west Virginia it's awe inspiring. You can tell that something massive happened there long ago if you can visualize
The scioto river is not small at all. It's smaller than the ohio river but as far as all the rivers I've ever seen in my life I would say it's a little bit bigger than average making the ohio big and the Mississippi huge
I grew up between meigs county, circleville, and a suburb of Columbus. This was really interesting and I'm excited you pronounced everything right!
OK, I was a bit disappointed that you weren't referring to the Great Miami because I know it had so old channels. Maybe you can cover that some time? It looked like the pre glacial Monongahela flowed where the northern Wabash is today. Is it possible that the Wabash is the modern incarnation of that pre-glacial channel? I understand that the Miami and tributaries are U shaped valleys filled with deep beds of gravel from glacial drift.
Best and truthful comment, ever.
Thank you for this video. I also live in this area. I noticed this feature 20 years ago because of my job, architect. Our firm has built 2 schools on this sediment material. The soil which is nicknamed "gumbo" would not support the buildings. Pilings had to be driven down or auger cast to the solid material. The buildings are actually supported on stilts, lol. I have noticed these "valleys" or "fingers" near South Webster and in Vernon township. I assume they are the result of that massive lake draining.
As someone who grew up not far from Teay’s Valley and lived in southern OH for a while, it was beautiful to learn more about the area. I’m impressed that you pronounced Scioto correctly. I butchered it when i was first living in the area
As a resident of Kanawha County, I'm thrilled you got the pronunciation right. I was bracing myself when Hurricane was mentioned.
This is so beyond cool. Didn't expect to learn about this today, thank you for the fascinating information!
This is fantastic evidence of ancient high altitude lakes and rivers.
Thank you
I've been staring at that for literal years trying to figure it out. Never made any sense. Thank you.
Awesome channel! Cumberland MD native, lived from charleston to morgantown on 79 working, the content is dense here, lots of cool stuff if your trying to understand what makes these mountains truely wild and wonderful
Grew up in Teays Valley/Hurricane WV. I’ve seen this for a long time on google earth but the first video I’ve seen on this. Thank you!
I also wondered why there’s a Teays valley school district in Ohio
That would have been an interesting PhD. I fly in and out of Alaska every month and you can see the active effect of glaciers on the land. So interesting to apply it to the ancient landscape.
Ive lived in the greater ohio river valley (WV) my whole life and just recently learned that the Teays/Kanawha/New River watershed is the 2nd oldest river system in the world. Even older than the Nile! The original New River river bed lies like 300-500 ft below the current one.
Really? What filled in the New River bed?
@@Scofari probably mostly silt from the floods of multiple ice age melts. The Appalachian mountains are very old and used to be very tall, as high as the Himalayas. Over time they eroded down so all that dirt is what has filled in the valleys.
After reading Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, i Google mapped the Mississippi all the way to the Gulf and saw how she kept moving, to the point of the bordering States gave up on matching their boundaries to it!
A great read, and Twain had a great life!
Thanks for posting!!
Instant subscribe! The way things are explained, the humor, some of them pronunciations. 👍☺️ I'm from near some of these tail waters and it's nice seeing local mentioned and the past shown and appreciated.
When I was teaching at UVA-Wise for Phil Shelton, he had us lead a trip up to the Teays (and on up to a peat bog)…. Neat stuff!
Another great video. This is a fascinating story that I went down a significant wormhole getting into the literature on a few years ago. I really enjoy the range of topics on your channel (although there is a definite center of gravity around geomorphology/landscape evolution) and the fact that you are not afraid to get into the weeds on some of these topics, as well as the fact that you bring to light geological stories that are less-known and under the radar.
I never knew any of this and im born and raised in Portsmouth Ohio area. Thanks for the video!!!