Bear Meadows Natural Area is located in

Centre County Centre County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 158,172. Its county seat is Bellefonte. Centre County comprises the State College, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area. History The lands ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, United States, four miles south of Boalsburg, within

Rothrock State Forest Rothrock State Forest is a Pennsylvania state forest in Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry District #5. The main offices are located in Huntingdon in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania in the United States. Rothrock State Forest is located in Centre, ...

in the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

. The area is a

National Natural Landmark The National Natural Landmarks (NNL) Program recognizes and encourages the conservation of outstanding examples of the natural history of the United States. It is the only national natural areas program that identifies and recognizes the best ...

. The area can be accessed via a loop hiking trail, while it is visible from several ridgetop vistas reached via the Mid State Trail.

Description

Bear Meadows Natural Area was founded in 1965 as a State Forest Natural Area, and has since been expanded to 890 acres. The area contains a bog surrounded by steep mountains, in an enclosed valley that has been poorly drained for thousands of years. The bog creates a swampy landscape that is unusual for central Pennsylvania, and it is known for providing a habitat for rare plants and insects. Large amounts of

peat Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and is the most efficien ...

have formed at the bottom of the bog. This peat has attracted scientific interest because it preserves spores from plants and trees that have occupied the area for the past 10,000 years. The spores indicate that the area once included species now found only in Siberia and northern Canada, which can in turn be used to study long-term climate changes. The bog has been forming since the end of the last glacial period 10,000 years ago and is surrounded by an

old-growth forest An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological featur ...

boreal Boreal may refer to: Climatology and geography *Boreal (age), the first climatic phase of the Blytt-Sernander sequence of northern Europe, during the Holocene epoch *Boreal climate, a climate characterized by long winters and short, cool to mild ...

species typically found much farther north, such as

black spruce ''Picea mariana'', the black spruce, is a North American species of spruce tree in the pine family. It is widespread across Canada, found in all 10 provinces and all 3 territories. It is the official tree of the province of Newfoundland and Labra ...

balsam fir ''Abies balsamea'' or balsam fir is a North American fir, native to most of eastern and central Canada (Newfoundland west to central Alberta) and the northeastern United States (Minnesota east to Maine, and south in the Appalachian Mountains to ...

eastern hemlock ''Tsuga canadensis'', also known as eastern hemlock, eastern hemlock-spruce, or Canadian hemlock, and in the French-speaking regions of Canada as ''pruche du Canada'', is a coniferous tree native to eastern North America. It is the state tree of ...

, and

yellow birch ''Betula alleghaniensis'', the yellow birch, golden birch, or swamp birch, is a large tree and an important lumber species of birch native to northeastern North America. Its vernacular names refer to the golden color of the tree's bark. In the pa ...

Geology

The bog itself is underlain by the

Juniata Formation The Ordovician Juniata Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania and Maryland. It is a relative slope-former occurring between the two prominent ridge-forming sandstone units: the Tuscarora Formation and the Bald Eagle Formation in the ...

. The U-shaped ridge to the north, west, and south is formed by the

Tuscarora Formation The Silurian Tuscarora Formation — also known as Tuscarora Sandstone or Tuscarora Quartzite — is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia, USA. Description The Tuscarora is a thin- to thick-bedded fine-gr ...

. The low hill to the northeast of the bog is formed by the

Bald Eagle Formation The Ordovician Bald Eagle Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in central Pennsylvania, USA. It is a ridge-forming unit in the Appalachian Mountains. Description The Bald Eagle is defined as a gray to olive-gray and grayish-red, fine to coarse-gra ...

Periglacial Periglaciation (adjective: "periglacial", also referring to places at the edges of glacial areas) describes geomorphic processes that result from seasonal thawing of snow in areas of permafrost, the runoff from which refreezes in ice wedges and ot ...

boulders are abundant on the slopes surrounding the bog.Map 61: Atlas of Preliminary Geologic Quadrangle Maps of Pennsylvania, compiled and edited by Thomas M. Berg and Christine M. Dodge, 1981, Pennsylvania Geologic Survey, 4th Series, Harrisburg, PA
Map 61
, McAlevys Fort Quadrangle

References

{{authority control National Natural Landmarks in Pennsylvania Protected areas of Centre County, Pennsylvania